Jones helped draft parts of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech and played a role in smuggling pages of King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail out of prison, among other duties.

He joined King’s legal defense against tax evasion charges in 1960, served as a top confidante and fundraiser for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and again helped smuggle the Letter from Birmingham Jail.

Jones is credited with penning portions of the I Have A Dream speech and for smuggling pages of King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail from his cell.

Jones appeared publicly with Stephen Curry at a San Francisco Giants game, a moment that helped spark a Curry-backed documentary project about him.

In 2024, Curry joined Jones on the field for a ceremonial first pitch, and Curry is producing a documentary related to Jones.

Jones’s family and institutions continue to celebrate his legacy as a conscience-driven civil rights advocate and proponent of nonviolence.

Jones is survived by five children and his longtime partner Lin Walters; funeral and memorial plans were being finalized.

He shifted into academia, teaching at the University of San Francisco, co-founding the Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice, and serving as a scholar-in-residence at Stanford’s King Institute.

Jones published Last of the Lions: An African American Journey in Memoir in 2023 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2024.

He participated in landmark legal battles, including the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision that established actual malice standards for defaming public figures.

Jones helped organize the 1963 March on Washington and contributed to the push for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

He contributed to King’s 1967 Riverside Church speech, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, arguing that U.S. militarism worsened poverty at home.