An attorney for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who helped smuggle out snippets of King’s writing that became the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” has died.
When King was behind bars at the Birmingham Jail in 1963, attorney Clarence B. Jones would bring him newspapers, which King would read and then write on in the margins, and on pieces of yellow legal pad paper, which Jones then smuggled out of the jail.
Jones died May 22 at an assisted living facility in Cupertino, California. He was 95.
“An esteemed, beloved elder is now an ancestor,” said the King Center, in a statement released Monday. “Clarence B. Jones, among Dr. King’s trusted legal counsels and strategic advisors, has passed. We are grateful for his life and his work in the interest of justice and Civil Rights. Our hearts go out to his family and our prayers go up on behalf of his loved ones.”
Jones, who had been an entertainment lawyer in California before he met King in 1960, became a key part of the Birmingham campaign in 1963. As his attorney, he was allowed to visit King in his Birmingham jail cell and bring him newspapers
“King read these press reactions as fast as Clarence Jones could smuggle newspapers into his cell,” wrote Taylor Branch, author of “Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63.”
On April 12, 1963, eight Birmingham clergy asked King to delay civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham. That same day, King was arrested and put in the Birmingham Jail.
King read the letter from the eight clergy published April 13, 1963, in The Birmingham News.
On April 16,1963, King began writing his “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” directed at eight Alabama clergy who were considered moderate religious leaders. King wrote his response to them in the margins of the newspaper.
“By the time Clarence Jones visited the jail again that Tuesday, King had pushed a wandering skein of ink into every vacant corner,” Branch wrote. He pulled the newspaper out of his shirt and gave it to Jones. “I want you to try to get it out, if you can,” King told Jones.
King’s epic response still echoes through American history.
The letter King started from his jail cell was typed up and compiled by the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker. King then polished and rewrote it in subsequent drafts, addressing it as an open letter to the eight Birmingham clergy.
King’s letter eloquently stated the case for racial equality and the immediate need for social justice.
Jones also became a speechwriter for King, contributing to the famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington later in 1963
Jones was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2024.
“He was much closer to King in terms of personal legal advice and counsel beyond just the law than most of the other attorneys,” said Samford University historian Jonathan Bass, author of “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” about the Letter from Birmingham Jail.
“He was very humble,” Bass said. “He just gave all the credit to Dr. King, although he played pivotal roles in the ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ and the production of the ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’”
