“We Lost the Last of the Lions”
Clarence B. Jones (LAW’59) received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2024.
“We Lost the Last of the Lions”
LAW alum Clarence B. Jones, a civil rights leader, drafted parts of “I Have A Dream” speech
Clarence B. Jones (LAW’59), a lawyer, civil rights leader, and close friend and adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59), died May 22, 2026, at the age of 95. Jones helped plan the March on Washington and drafted portions of King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. He helped preserve and disseminate the handwritten pages of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
“We lost the last of the lions,” wrote Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Ryan Roth Gallo Professor of Law and dean of BU’s School of Law, in a remembrance. Jones “helped shape the dream that reshaped the United States of America and that changed the course of history,” she wrote, and was “one of the most influential, yet underrecognized architects of the Civil Rights Movement [who] made sure that the moral arc of the universe continued to bend toward justice.”
Jones was an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles when King visited him at home to ask if he’d join his legal team. He went on to become a close advisor.
He was the first African American named an allied member of the New York Stock Exchange in 1967, when he joined the investment banking and brokerage firm of Carter, Berlind & Weill. Later, he was appointed scholar-in-residence at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.
Among his many accolades, he received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2024. The American Bar Association’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice awarded him the 2021 Thurgood Marshall Award, citing his six decades of dedication to advancing US civil rights “as a passionate activist, accomplished attorney, and speechwriter to Martin Luther King, Jr.” In 2025, the BU Alumni Association recognized his leadership with its highest honor, a Distinguished Alumni Award.
Onwuachi-Willig recalled meeting Jones: “One of the greatest honors of my life was getting to sit down and have an hours-long conversation with him and my colleague Professor Erika George [LAW associate dean for equity, justice, and engagement and the Ernest Haddad Faculty Scholar] a couple of summers ago. Thank you, Dr. Jones, for making my life and career possible! Thank you for all you did for our nation! May your legacy live on through us all!”