2009.06.13: June 13, 2009: Headlines: Figures: COS - Turkey: Civil Rights: Jackson Sun: Prominent civil rights lawyer Elaine Ruth Jones will deliver the commencement address to Lane College
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2009.06.13: June 13, 2009: Headlines: Figures: COS - Turkey: Civil Rights: Jackson Sun: Prominent civil rights lawyer Elaine Ruth Jones will deliver the commencement address to Lane College
Prominent civil rights lawyer Elaine Ruth Jones will deliver the commencement address to Lane College
After graduating with honors in political science from Howard University, Jones entered the Peace Corps and became one of the first blacks to serve with the corps in Turkey. Following her two-year Peace Corps stint, she became the first black woman to graduate from the University of Virginia School of Law, and subsequently the first black person to serve on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association. Jones was invited to join one of Wall Street's most prestigious firms after her graduation. She turned down the offer to pursue a goal she had chosen in her youth and instead joined the Legal Defense Fund's staff in New York City, according to the release. Elaine Jones, former head of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey in the 1960's.
Prominent civil rights lawyer Elaine Ruth Jones will deliver the commencement address to Lane College
Civil rights lawyer to speak at Lane
The Jackson Sun
• June 13, 2009
Prominent civil rights lawyer Elaine Ruth Jones will deliver the commencement address to Lane College summer graduates at 2 p.m. Sunday in the J.F. Lane Health and Physical Education Building, according to a news release.
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Jones is the president and director-counsel emeritus of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.
After a 32-year tenure with legal defense fund, Jones stepped down in 2004. Since that time, she has been lecturing, writing, teaching and publicly speaking on legal and related policy issues, the release said.
A teacher and mentor, Jones has been a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics and a guest lecturer at the law schools of American University, Catholic University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Howard University, Temple University, Yale University and the College of William and Mary.
Overseas, she has lectured at Oxford, Tel Aviv University School of Law and the University of Khartoum in Sudan, according to the release.
Founded in 1940 by the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the legal defense fund is the nation's oldest law firm fighting for equal rights and justice for people of color, women and the poor.
When Jones took the helm of the organization in 1993, she became the first woman and fourth person to head the fund.
Born in Norfolk, Va., Jones learned the realities of racism and the importance of idealism from her mother, a school teacher, and her father, a Pullman porter and a member of the nation's first black trade union.
After graduating with honors in political science from Howard University, Jones entered the Peace Corps and became one of the first blacks to serve with the corps in Turkey.
Following her two-year Peace Corps stint, she became the first black woman to graduate from the University of Virginia School of Law, and subsequently the first black person to serve on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association.
Jones was invited to join one of Wall Street's most prestigious firms after her graduation. She turned down the offer to pursue a goal she had chosen in her youth and instead joined the Legal Defense Fund's staff in New York City, according to the release.
With the exception of two years as special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, she remained with the legal defense fund until 2004.
Jones holds fourteen honorary degrees and the Jefferson Medal of Freedom, the highest honor awarded by the University of Virginia, which does not award honorary degrees. She also has received the recognition of many community organizations.
In December of 2000, President Bill Clinton presented her with the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award, and in 2009 she received awards from the New York Bar Association and the Old Dominion Bar Association in Virginia.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: June, 2009; RPCV Elaine Jones (Turkey); Figures; Peace Corps Turkey; Directory of Turkey RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Turkey RPCVs; Civil Rights
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Story Source: Jackson Sun
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Turkey; Civil Rights
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