BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY - AFRICAN AMERICAN " REV E. EDWARD JONES " WAS AN INFLUENTIAL SOCIAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER - GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                         BLACK  SOCIAL  HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

REV. E. EDWARD JONES 
Shreveport mayor: “Rev. Jones was a true friend and supporter who not only touched my life, but the...
BY SHANTELL E. JAMISON
Civil Rights Pioneer Rev. E. Edward Jones Dies 

Influential social and civil rights pioneer Rev. E. Edward Jones has died.

He was 85.

Jones was a longtime pastor of Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was instrumental in creating Galilee City, an effort which helped revitalize Shreveport’s Allendale neighborhood.

“He leaves a lasting legacy difficult to live up to, but easy to follow,” Rev. Theron J. Jackson of Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church said during an interview with USA Today.

In 1965, Rev. Jones filed a suit on behalf of his daughter, Beryl Jones that spearheading the desegregation of the Caddo Parish School System. That same year, Beryl, along with two other students, became the first Black students to attend an all-white school in Caddo Parish.

“Rev. Jones was a true friend and supporter who not only touched my life, but the lives of so many in this city, state, and nation,” Mayor Ollie Tyler wrote in a statement to The Times. “His dedication to the Galilee Missionary Baptist Church and love for his community has improved the quality of life for so many in this city. I will miss his generous heart and ability to connect people from all walks of life.”

The old Galilee church was a meeting place for civil rights protests and marches. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke there twice to encourage Blacks to vote. Jones worked closely with King through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference after meeting him in 1957.

Jones also served as president of the National Baptist Convention of America. He was also listed as one of EBONY’s “100 Most Influential Blacks in America.”

BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY - AFRICAN AMERICAN/SIERRA LEONEAN " WAS A MISSIONARY TO TE COLONY OF SIERRA LEONE - GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK HEROES "

                         BLACK  SOCIAL  HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Edward Jones (missionary
Edward Jones (1807–1865) was an African American missionary to the colony of Sierra Leone. Jones was a prominent missionary and figure in the colony of Sierra Leone; he was the first naturalized citizen of Sierra Leone (though he retained his American citizenship). Jones was the first principal of Fourah Bay College. He was the first Black American to graduate from Amherst College in Massachusetts.[1] Edward Jones was the brother of Jehu Jones, a prominent African-American preacher.

Contents 
1 Early life
2 Immigration to Liberia
3 Life in Sierra Leone
Early life
Edward Jones was born in Charleston, South Carolina and became part of the mulatto elite of that majority African-American city. Many free mulattoes were freed slaves who had fought in the American Revolutionary War for the Patriots and then freed for their loyalty. Edward Jones's father, Jehu Jones, in 1798, had bought his freedom for $140 from his owner, a tailor who had taught him the craft, and also bought freedom for his wife Abigail and children. Jones Sr. became wealthy from his investments in real estate and eventually a hotel owner catering to white travelers. He bought his first slave in 1807.[2] Associating himself with the elite white people of Charleston, the senior Jones "seldom kept the company of even light-complexioned free blacks and never of slaves."[citation needed] Nonetheless, Edward Jones was proud of his African heritage, and was a member of the Brown Fellowship Society in Charleston.

Immigration to Liberia
Jones immigrated to Liberia but did not stay long before immigrating to the colony of Freetown, Sierra Leone.[3]

Life in Sierra Leone
It is in Sierra Leone that Jones is most remembered as a great leader and one of the patriarchs of a prominent Krio family. Jones was a superintendent of the liberated African village of Kent, Sierra Leone and it was there he met one of the Nova Scotian settlers, Hannah Nylander, and married her. Jones had married into another prominent family; his wife was of half Nova Scotian (Black Loyalist descent, making her ultimately of Black American descent) and half German through her missionary father, Gustav Nylander. In all Jones married three times and buried all of his wives in Sierra Leone. Jones also fathered six children, only one whom lived to adulthood.[4] Jones was also the first principal of the newly established Fourah Bay College in Fourah Bay, Sierra Leone (a suburb of Freetown). It was there that the only known portrait of Edward Jones was hung on the wall. Jones died in England in 1865.