“We Don't Fail”

Baton Rouge civil rights leader Johnnie Anderson Jones, Sr.'s legacy continues

by

On January 30, the Grand Hyatt's ballroom buzzed with anticihpation as 200 members and guests of the National Association of Secretaries of State gathered in Washington, D.C. for a momentous occasion. They had come to honor a man whose life’s journey from the battlefields of Normandy to the frontlines of the civil rights movement embodied the essence of American democracy.

Johnnie Anderson Jones Sr., who passed away on April 23, 2022, at the age of 102, was about to join an illustrious roster of American heroes. The Margaret Chase Smith Award for American Democracy—established in 1991 to honor Smith's courageous stand against McCarthyism—had previously recognized luminaries such as Jimmy Carter, Sandra Day O'Connor, Rosa Parks, Condoleezza Rice, the Little Rock Nine, and Bob Dole. Now, it would posthumously honor a Louisiana native who had made his state and nation a better place.

Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry had nominated Jones, and she could barely contain her pride as she introduced him to her colleagues. "I was really glad to introduce Mr. Johnnie Jones to my other secretaries of state here," she beamed. "They told me that it was a no-brainer who to vote for. They thought Jones was hands-down the best nominee, and they were happy to vote for him and couldn't wait to give him this honor."

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The poignancy of the moment was heightened by the absence of those closest to Jones. He outlived not only Sebell, his wife of thirty-four years, but also all four of his children—Johnnie Jr., twins Adol and Adir, and his daughter, Ann. Standing in their stead was Baton Rouge's Mary Louise Jones, the widow of Johnnie Jr., who accepted the award with words that captured her father-in-law's extraordinary legacy.

"Johnnie Jones," she declared, her voice carrying the weight of history, "put his own safety and comfort on the line to ensure that future generations would not endure the injustices he had faced. His courage and persistence left an indelible mark on this nation, making it a better place for all Americans. That, I believe, is the true measure of a life well lived."

From Rosemound Plantation to the Battlefield

This life began in 1919 on Rosemound Plantation in West Feliciana Parish, where Jones's ancestors had been enslaved. Jones grew up watching his parents, Henry and Sarah, work seventy-five rented acres with quiet dignity and fierce determination. Though unable to read, his father possessed a remarkable mathematical genius, calculating complex sums in his head. His mother planted in him an unshakeable belief: "We don't fail."

His father’s mathematical gift manifested early in young Johnnie. At just twelve years old, he landed a job at W.A. Ransom Lumber Company in Woodville, Mississippi, where he quickly proved himself far more than a simple office boy. His natural leadership emerged as he began managing shipments and running complex operations. The owner noticed that every time the regular manager went fishing and Jones took over, he saved hundreds of dollars in unnecessary lumber allocations. The "little Negro boy running the company with a sharp pencil," as he became known, caught everyone's attention—especially his father's.

Henry Jones arrived at the lumber yard one day to find his teenage son confidently directing operations with a precision that amazed both Black and white workers. In that moment, the elder Jones made a decision that would alter his family's destiny: "If you can do all this," he declared, "I'm going to put you in 'the Southern.'"

It was a dramatic move that required dramatic sacrifice. Henry Jones transplanted his family thirty-eight miles south to Scotlandville, on Baton Rouge's northern edge, trading their seventy-five prosperous acres for just thirteen. There stood Southern University, then the nation's largest historically Black college, with its Laboratory School for gifted students.

When Jones, then a student at the university, received his draft notice in 1943, he refused to report for duty immediately—as Black students at Southern were expected to do; white students at Louisiana State University, on the other hand, were allowed to finish their semesters before beginning service. Jones stood his ground. "I wanted to complete my semester, then I'll report," he told the draft board, demanding equal treatment. And he won.

A little over a year later, Jones had worked his way up to the position of Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army—the second African American to ever hold the title. On June 6, 1944, dawn broke over the English Channel as his transport ship, the USS Francis C. Harrington, approached the coast of Normandy. Part of the third wave headed for Omaha Beach, Jones and his fellow soldiers of the 494th Port Battalion had spent days crossing the Channel. Suddenly, a massive blast rocked the Harrington as it struck a German mine. "When the ship hit the mine, it knocked the whole ship out of water," Jones would later recall. "I went up in the air and came back down in the midst of twenty-five dead soldiers."

Jones, with other survivors, boarded one of the Higgins boats for the final approach to the beach. German forces in pillbox bunkers overlooking the beach opened up with withering fire. Bullets came "from everywhere" as Jones and his fellow soldiers waded through neck-deep water under constant fire. The explosion had torn away Jones's sidearm; once ashore, he retrieved a carbine from one of his fallen comrades.

"I wanted to complete my semester, then I'll report," he told the draft board, demanding equal treatment. And he won.

Then came a moment that would haunt Jones for the next seven decades. As he made his way across the blood-soaked beach, a young German soldier suddenly rose from a concealed position directly in front of him. In that split second, the newly minted warrant officer who would spend his life fighting for justice was forced to take a life. "I didn't want to kill," he would recall, his voice growing quiet even decades later. "I see that at night now. That haunts me."

In the days following victory in Europe, Jones confronted racial injustice within the military itself. While white soldiers received leave passes in Paris, African American troops who had fought in the third wave at Normandy were denied the same privileges. Jones refused to accept this disparity. Drawing on his warrant officer authority, he went directly to General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters to advocate for fair treatment. His approach was diplomatic but firm, arguing that leave should be granted based on arrival date, not race. His reasoned argument and calm demeanor proved persuasive—Eisenhower's staff immediately issued a policy change ensuring troops received leave based on their arrival date, regardless of race. "If you resort to the proper methods to achieve a proper result," Jones would later reflect, "the proper results will be achieved."

Though he survived Normandy, Jones carried shrapnel in his neck for decades—a wound for which he would not receive a Purple Heart until 2021, when he was 101 years old. At the ceremony, Lieutenant General Russell Honoré captured both the triumph and tragedy of the moment: "He, like many others, did not get the recognition they deserved after fighting in WWII, after that great demobilization. I think it's Churchill that said 'America always does the right thing, most of the time late.'"

Jones's military service earned him multiple honors, including the Victory Medal, the World War II American Campaign Medal, the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with two Bronze Stars and one Bronze Arrowhead, France's prestigious Croix de Guerre, and the Legion of Honor.

A Legal Warrior for Civil Rights

Returning from war, Jones quickly realized that his fight for equality would be ongoing. On a bus from New Jersey to Mississippi, he noticed that German prisoners of war were seated comfortably, while Black veterans were forced to stand. "After being exposed to flying bullets and flying bodies during the Normandy invasion, death did not really faze me," he reflected. "I was more willing to die fighting for my rights in the United States than trying to defeat the Germans in Europe."

Armed with the GI Bill, Jones returned to Southern University to finish his undergraduate degree and then enrolled in Southern's Law School. "I thought I was smart because I had been a warrant officer and everything," Jones recalled, "but when I got into law school, I found out that words convey more thoughts than I had in my vocabulary."

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As his first exams approached, self-doubt crept in—until a profound moment with his mother changed everything. Sarah Jones had always insisted her son would become a lawyer, even when such dreams seemed impossible for a Black child from Rosemound Plantation. Now, as she lay on her deathbed during his first semester, she provided one final, crucial push forward.

"Son, how are you doing in law school?" she asked, weakly.

"Mama, I think I'm going to fail," Jones admitted, leaning down to kiss her.

With her last reserves of strength, she reached up and stroked his forehead, whispering, "You never fail, Son.”

Those words ignited something in Jones. He left her bedside for the law library, studying past midnight, then brought books home to continue until dawn. Sarah Jones lived just long enough to see her son complete that first semester, passing away in 1951. But her words—"You never fail"—became his North Star, guiding him through decades of legal battles ahead.

In Louisiana's segregated courtrooms, Jones faced constant attempts to diminish his dignity and legal acumen, particularly from District Court Judge Fred LeBlanc. Rather than let the judge's racist quips and backhanded comments distract or enrage him, Jones developed a strategy of measured responses, sometimes using humor to deflate LeBlanc's attempts at humiliation. When LeBlanc once sneered that Jones "looked like he ought to be one of them [defendants]," Jones pretended to take it as a compliment about his youthful appearance, replying with a grin, "Thank you, Judge. When I start looking old, I'm going to do just like Ponce de Leon did. I'm going to start looking for the fountain of youth." The courtroom erupted in laughter—at the judge's expense.

His approach to the law was innovative and daring. In 1960, he found himself defending some of the first activists of the Civil Rights Movement in Louisiana—Southern University students who staged lunch counter sit-ins demanding integration. But when Jones brought his arguments for the cases to a gathering of civil rights attorneys in New Orleans, not a single lawyer agreed with his novel constitutional approach—which challenged “separate but equal” through six distinct constitutional questions, rather than the standard three. The NAACP's Legal Defense Fund even threatened to withdraw funding if Jones persisted with the unconventional legal theory. At a crucial moment, legendary New Orleans civil rights attorney A.P. Tureaud rose to Jones's defense. "You may not like his research, and you may not agree with his research . .  . but I'm not in a position to reject it," he said. When asked if he would put his name on Jones's brief, Tureaud responded firmly: "I certainly would."

The gamble paid off. While multiple sit-in cases from across the South sought Supreme Court review, only Jones's case was accepted. His innovative constitutional arguments caught the attention of the nation's highest court, prompting civil rights attorney Jack Greenberg to marvel that this "wiry, energetic, and rustic" lawyer from the Deep South could craft "constitutional objections that would command Supreme Court review."

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Jones's involvement with the Civil Rights movement made him a target of the Ku Klux Klan. Three times, they tried to assassinate him. On a sunlit Louisiana morning in 1970, Jones turned his car's ignition key and felt his world explode. He recalled how the blast lifted his vehicle violently skyward, leaving him sprawled on a second-story rooftop amid burning rubber and singed shrubbery. Anonymous callers warned they would "put a bullet through his forehead." Jones added each threat to the long list of perils he'd faced and survived.

His legal victories paved the way for Black Americans to register to vote, attend integrated schools, and hold public office. As U.S. Representative Cleo Fields, a Black man, later reflected at Jones's Purple Heart ceremony: "I've never been bitten by a dog. I've never been hosed with water. I've never had to drink from a colored fountain. When I registered to vote, I didn't have to state the preamble to the Constitution. I didn't have to state how many bubbles were in the bar soap." Each "never" in Fields's litany measured the distance between the segregated Louisiana of Jones's youth and the state where Fields could dream of the governor's mansion. "And I thank [Johnnie Jones] for that."

A Great American

For Mary Louise Jones, the Margaret Chase Smith Award ceremony carried a profound significance that transcended even the prestigious award itself. As she reflected on the moment, her words captured both personal pride and historical weight: "I felt proud, I felt honored, and just overwhelmed in some ways to know that he is being honored by a group that has honored such a prominent group of other Americans throughout history."

Secretary Landry concluded the event with a final expression of praise for Jones: "The State of Louisiana is just really proud to have a great American like Mr. Johnnie Jones to be a native son who worked for equality in Louisiana like he did. He has made Louisiana a better state and a state that we can all be proud of. America should be proud of Johnnie Jones, too, because he was a great patriot. . . Our country is a better place because of Mr. Johnnie Jones."

In that elegant ballroom, Jones’s lifelong fight for justice echoed against the walls. Through the voices of those who gathered to honor him, his story will continue to inspire future generations to stand up for the principles he had defended so courageously: equality, honor, and democracy.