John Jones (abolitionist)

John Jones (1816 – May 27, 1879) was an American abolitionist, businessman, civil rights leader, and philanthropist.[1]

For others named John Jones, see John Jones.
John Jones
Portrait of John Jones by Aaron E. Darling, circa 1865
John Jones c. 1865
Born1816
Green City, North Carolina, US
DiedMay 27, 1879 (age 63–64)
Chicago, Illinois, US
Occupation(s)Tailor, politician
SpouseMary Jane Richardson Jones
Children1

Jones was born in North Carolina and later lived in Tennessee. Arriving in Chicago with three dollars in assets in 1845, Jones rose to become a leading African-American figure in the early history of Chicago. He led a campaign to end the Black Codes of Illinois and was the first African-American to win public office in the state.[2][3] He was the first black man in the state of Illinois to serve on a grand jury in 1870, became a notary public in 1871 and the same year was elected to the Cook County Commission.[2][4] He also became become one of Chicago's wealthiest men through his successful tailoring business.[5]

Along with his wife, Mary Jones, he was a dedicated abolitionist and philanthropist, turning their home into a stop on the Underground Railroad. The Jones' household was a center of abolitionist activity in the pre-Civil War era; the couple helped hundreds of fugitives fleeing slavery. Jones died in 1879 of kidney failure.

Early life

Jones was born in Green City, North Carolina, in 1816 to a free biracial mother and German-American father.[6] For most of his early life, he was an indentured servant who trained as a tailor in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1841, Jones married a free black woman named Mary Jane Richardson (1819-1909), the daughter of Elijah and Diza Richardson.[2][7]

Jones had first met her in Tennessee and he moved to Alton, Illinois to woo her.[2] Their daughter Lavinia was born in 1843. The couple, ever mindful that their status as free could be called into question, secured fresh copies of freedmen's papers before an Alton court on November 28, 1844.[2] The young family moved to Chicago in March 1845, eight years after the city's incorporation.[2][8] Committed abolitionists, they were drawn by Chicago's large anti-slavery movement.[6] On the journey, they were suspected of being runaway slaves and detained, but were freed on the appeal of their stagecoach driver.[8][9]

Arrival in Chicago

The couple arrived in the city with only $3.50 (equivalent to approximately $110 in 2022) to their name, pawning a watch to afford rent and the purchase of two stoves. A black grocer, O. G. Hanson, gave the Joneses $2 in credit (equivalent to approximately $60 in 2022).[3] John Jones's tailoring business succeeded and by 1850, they were able to afford their own home.[2] Although both were illiterate when they arrived in the city, they quickly learned to read and write, viewing it as key to empowerment—John wrote that "reading makes a free man".[2]

The 1851 Chicago Directory lists the Joneses tailoring shop and contains this advertisement for his services:[10]

I take this method of informing you that I may be found at all business hours at my shop, ready and willing to do all work in my line you may think proper to favor me with, in the best possible manner. I have on hand all kinds ofTrimings for reparing Gentlemen's Clothes. Bring your Clothes, Gents, and have them Cleaned and Repaired. Remember that all Clothes left with me are safe, because I am responsible, and permanently located at 119 Dearborn Street.

Black and white portrait of the couple sitting side by side
John and Mary Jane Jones in the 1840s

During his early years in Chicago, Jones became close with abolitionists Lemuel Covell Paine (L.C.P) Freer and Dr. Charles V. Dyer. They were credited by Jones for teaching him to read and write along with the fundamentals of business and real estate.[11] Beyond his tailoring business, Jones invested in land that would develop into the first working-class neighborhood for Chicago black families.[12]

Activism in Chicago

The Joneses became members of a small community of African-Americans in Chicago, comprising 140 people at the time of their arrival.[8][9] The Joneses joined the Liberty Party and made their family home Chicago's second stop on the Underground Railroad.[13]

While John's tailoring business prospered, Mary managed their home as a center of black activism, organizing resistance to the Black Codes and other restrictive laws like the Fugitive Slave Act.[9][14] Their friends included prominent abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, who introduced them to John Brown.[2] Brown and his associates, described by Mary as "the roughest looking men I ever saw", stayed with the Joneses on their way east to their raid on Harpers Ferry. The Joneses were not militant, despite their anti-slavery views, and did not support Brown's plan for a violent slave uprising.[13]

Jones played a key role in Chicago’s Underground Railroad and opened a "General Intelligence Office" at 88 Dearborn Street in 1854. This was the major communications hub for African-Americans, both free and escaped slaves, from 1854 until the end of the Civil War.[15] In 1861, the Joneses helped found Olivet Baptist Church, which contained the first library open to black Chicagoans.[13]

Illinois black codes

As early as 1847, Jones made it his primary objective to repeal Illinois' racist black laws.[16] Illinois's version of a Black law or "code", first adopted in 1819, controlled (and in a 1853 law in the lead-up to the Civil War, forbade completely) black immigration into Illinois, and prohibited blacks from serving on juries or in the Illinois state militia.[17] Jones' first attempt at repeal was writing a series of columns in the Western Citizen in 1847. It was also during this year that he began to work closely with his friend Frederick Douglass.[18] In December 1850, Jones circulated a petition—signed by black residents of the state—for Illinois legislators to repeal the Black Laws.[19] In 1864, the Chicago Tribune published Jones’ pamphlet, “The Black Laws of Illinois and a Few Reasons Why They Should Be Repealed.” It was not until 1865 that Illinois repealed the state’s provision of its Black Laws.[4]

Later life
Two simple oblong gravestones on grass - the left reads "Grandma Jonesie" and the right reads "John Jones", both in sans-serif font
Jones and his wife are buried side by side in Graceland Cemetery

In 1871, Jones was elected as a Cook County Commissioner, the first African-American to be elected to public office in Illinois.[4] The same year, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed both the Jones family home and their four-story tailoring business, together valued at $85,000 (equivalent to approximately $2,076,400 in 2022). The family was able to rebuild, building a new house near Prairie Avenue.[2] Jones's tailoring business was also restarted at a new location; he continued to work until retiring in 1873.[2]

Jones died from Bright's disease on May 27, 1879; his wife, Mary, was the executor of his will and inherited his fortune, becoming independently wealthy.[12][14] His estate was valued at over $70,000 (equivalent to approximately $2,198,500 in 2022); he had been one of the city's richest men.[20][21] John's tailoring business was taken over by Lloyd Garrison Wheeler, a family friend.[2] Mary Jones remained prominent in Chicago until her death in 1909.[5] The Joneses are buried side-by-side in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery.[22]

Recognition

In 2004, the City of Chicago designated the site of the John and Mary Jones House as a Chicago Landmark.

References
  1. "The "Right Man in the Right Place": John Jones and the Early African American Struggle for Civil Rights (U.S. National Park Service)".
  2. Junger, Richard (2008). "'God and man helped those who helped themselves': John and Mary Jones and the Culture of African American Self-Sufficiency in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Chicago". Journal of Illinois History. 11 (2): 111–32. hdl:2027/inu.30000125384218. OCLC 40045726. Archived from the original on May 12, 2021. Retrieved May 10, 2021 – via HathiTrust Digital Library.
  3. Bontemps, Arna; Conroy, Jack (1945). "John Brown's Friend". They Seek A City. Garden City, New York: Doubleday Doran. p. 30. OCLC 1444797.
  4. Naglich, Dennis. "The "Right Man in the Right Place": John Jones and the Early African American Struggle for Civil Rights". U.S. National Park Service. Archived from the original on December 10, 2021. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  5. Reed, Christopher Robert (2014). Knock at the Door of Opportunity: Black Migration to Chicago, 1900–1919. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-809-33334-9. OCLC 881417214.
  6. Smith, Jessie (November 27, 2017). Encyclopedia of African American Business: Updated and Revised Edition, 2nd Edition [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. pp. 424–426. ISBN 978-1-4408-5028-8. Archived from the original on May 11, 2022. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  7. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Vol. 94. 2001. pp. 363–91. Archived from the original on May 3, 2022. Retrieved May 11, 2022 – via University of Wisconsin–Madison.
  8. Reed, Christopher Robert (2005). Black Chicago's first century. 1833–1900. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. pp. 65–69. ISBN 978-0-826-22128-5. OCLC 969830027.
  9. "Early Chicago: Slavery in Illinois". WTTW Chicago. DuSable to Obama – Chicago's Black Metropolis. July 5, 2018. Archived from the original on January 1, 2021. Retrieved January 1, 2021.
  10. Zimny, Michael (October 2, 2003). Goeken, Brian; Tatum, Terry (eds.). "Landmark Designation Report" (PDF). Commissioner Denise M. Casalino. Commission on Chicago Landmarks. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 15, 2023. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  11. Rather, Ernest R. (1972). Chicago Negro almanac and reference book. Chicago Negro Almanac Pub. Co. Archived from the original on May 3, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
  12. Reed, Christopher R. (2001). "African American Life in Antebellum Chicago, 1833-1860". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 94 (4): 356–382. ISSN 1522-1067. JSTOR 40193583.
  13. Smith, Jessie Carney; Phelps, Shirelle, eds. (2003). "Jones, Mary Jane Richardson". Notable Black American Women. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale Research. ISBN 0-8103-4749-0. OCLC 24468213. Archived from the original on December 12, 2019. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
  14. Women building Chicago, 1790–1990 : a biographical dictionary. Rima Lunin Schultz, Adele Hast, Paul Avrich Collection. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-253-33852-5. OCLC 44573291. Archived from the original on May 8, 2021. Retrieved May 8, 2021.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  15. Calarco, Tom; Vogel, Cynthia (2011). Places of the Underground Railroad: A Geographical Guide. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-38146-1. Archived from the original on May 11, 2022. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  16. Weiner, Dana Elizabeth (January 15, 2013). Race and Rights: Fighting Slavery and Prejudice in the Old Northwest, 1830–1870 (in German). Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-60909-072-2. Archived from the original on May 11, 2022. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  17. "100 Best Documents at the Illinois State Archives". Office of the Illinois Secretary of State. Archived from the original on May 11, 2022. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  18. "John Jones to Frederick Douglass, February 4, 1848 (Unpublished) | Frederick Douglass Papers". frederickdouglass.infoset.io. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
  19. Bridges, Roger D. (2015). "Antebellum Struggle for Citizenship". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 108 (3–4): 296–321. doi:10.5406/jillistathistsoc.108.3-4.0296. ISSN 1522-1067. JSTOR 10.5406/jillistathistsoc.108.3-4.0296.
  20. Lusk, David W. (1887). Politics and Politicians of Illinois: Anecdotes and Incidents, a Succinct History of the State, 1809–1887. Springfield, Illinois: H.W. Rokker. pp. 341–342. ISBN 978-0-530-24204-0. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021.
  21. Hyman, Michael B. (February 1, 2015). "The man who ended Illinois' 'black laws': It's past due for the state to honor John Jones". Chicago Lawyer Magazine. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  22. Kaba, Mariame; McDowell, Essence (2018). Lifting As They Climbed. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books. p. 13. OCLC 1143390958.
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