The NATHANIEL R. JONES FOUNDATION empowers a new generation of lawyers, advocates, and activists to answer "The Call” to make equal justice under the law a reality for all.
The Foundation is the culmination and continuation of the life work of the late Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones, Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judge, former NAACP general counsel, and lifelong champion in the fight to end racial discrimination in America.
Oil Portrait by Simmie Knox
The Nathaniel R. Jones Foundation advances the cause of civil rights by sharing the history and lessons of the modern day civil rights movement, and encouraging and empowering a new generation of lawyers and advocates to “answer the call” to make equal justice under the law a reality for all.
Judge Jones and his daughter, Stephanie Jones founded the Nathaniel R. Jones Foundation to help provide new generations with the lessons and tools they need to continue the journey toward racial justice in the twenty-first century.
The Foundation serves as both a bridge and a catalyst, helping current and future lawyers, advocates and decision-makers apply the lessons Judge Jones learned as pivotal figure in the twentieth century civil rights movement to the modern day struggle to secure equal justice under the law.
The Nathaniel R. Jones Foundation has been recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
The Nathaniel R. Jones Foundation takes its mission from the calling Judge Jones describes in his much-lauded 2016 memoir, “Answering the Call,” in which he details his journey from Youngstown, Ohio – where his parents settled as part of the great migration in the 1920s – to the NAACP to the federal bench and beyond.
In his memoir, Judge Jones recounts how, as a young boy, he heard “The Call” first sounded in 1909 by the founders of the NAACP who implored Americans to take up the fight for civil and political rights for black Americans.
Inspired and guided by lawyers, scholars and activists in the civil rights struggle, including Thurgood Marshall, J. Maynard Dickerson, and W.E.B. Dubois, answered The Call and continued their fight as NAACP general counsel, a federal judge, international human rights activist and elder statesman.
Like its founder, Judge Jones, the Nathaniel R. Jones Foundation recognizes that the fight for racial justice is not static but is a continuum, a long arc, rooted in history and curving gradually toward the future. Over the years, countless hands have grasped that arc – sometimes gently, sometimes more firmly – and helped guide it toward justice. The Foundation continues that effort, joining with many other hands to bend the arc closer and closer toward justice.
“Answering the Call to racial justice has not been confined to a specific time in the past or the history of a particular organization, but has been defined by the imperatives that guided my life. I have tried to advance the baton of justice handed to me by my forbears who were much more surefooted and fearless than me in answering The Call.
With the distance yet to travel to bring justice to all Americans, I implore others to accept the baton and continue the race.”
- Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, “Answering the Call”
