YSU to honor retired judge, civil-rights activist and apartheid abolitionist

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Nathaniel R. Jones — retired federal judge, longtime civil-rights advocate and a leading player in the abolition of apartheid — will receive the Youngstown State University Friend of the University Award on Saturday.

Jones, retired judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, will receive the award at a dinner at the Youngstown Club in downtown Youngstown. The awards dinner is by invitation only.

Initiated in 1997, the annual award recognizes alumni, friends and donors who have had a significant impact on YSU.

Previous recipients include the Schwebel and Beeghly families, Tony and Mary Lariccia, Frank and Norma Watson, and John and Denise DeBartolo.

Jones, a native of Youngstown, served in the Army and then attended YSU, receiving his A.B. in 1951 and his L.L.B. in 1955. He was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1957.

From 1956 to 1959, he was executive director of the Fair Employment Practices Commission of Youngstown.

He then began private practice, and a year later was appointed as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland.

In 1967, he served as assistant general counsel to President Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.

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