Judge Jones earns place among civil-rights icons

Nathaniel R. Jones, Youngs- town’s proud native son, last week rightfully joined an exclusive club of some of the heaviest hitters in the American civil-rights movement.

In receiving the National Association of Colored People’s highest honor at the civil-rights organization’s annual convention in Cincinnati, Jones now stands among proud company: George Washington Carver, Marian Anderson, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Oprah Winfrey and Martin Luther King Jr. among them.

He and those other luminaries each received the prestigious Spingarn Medal created in 1914 by Joel Elias Spingarn, then chairman of the board of the NAACP. Jones, best known nationally as a federal district court of appeals judge in Cincinnati, richly deserves the honor.

ANSWERING THE CALL

As Anthony Foxx, U.S. secretary of transportation, put it last week in presenting the gold medal to the native of Smoky Hollow on Youngstown’s near North Side, “At every point when his country needed him, Nathaniel Jones answered the call.”

Truer words have rarely been spoken. Jones answered the call to duty to defend his nation during World War II as a valiant member of the U.S. Army Air Corps.

From his role as executive director of the U.S. Fair Employment Practices Commission to his appointment as the first African-American assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio to his leadership role on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to his service as general counsel for the national NAACP, he answered his own personal calling to make a positive impact on fulfilling this nation’s promise of equal rights for all.

Then in 1979, he answered the call of President Jimmy Carter to become the presiding judge of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a position in which he served honorably and with distinction until 2002.

Given that stellar career of public service, it’s no wonder that the Spingarn Medal is but the latest in a long string of national awards bestowed upon Jones. A small sampling of other tributes he has received includes the naming of a federal courthouse in downtown Youngstown in his honor, the International Freedom Conductor Award from the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the Federal Bar Association’s Pillar of Justice Award, the Children’s Defense Fund’s Changing the Odds Award, membership in the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame, The American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Award of Excellence from the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship and induction into the National Bar Association Hall of Fame.

But for the 90-year-old Jones who still works as a private attorney in Cincinnati, the NAACP and its goals have been his life’s passion. Upon receiving his award, Jones said, “I am reminded how my life’s work has been shaped by the mission of this organization. Being a lawyer was my calling, and that calling is the work for equal opportunity and justice for all our nation’s citizens.”

Greater Youngstown could not be any prouder that he answered so many selfless callings with skillful service and unwavering perseverance. In so doing, he has enhanced the lives of millions and has taken his rightful spot among America’s legal and civil-rights giants.