Major J. Jones Photographic Plates collection

Major J. Jones (1918-1993) was born in Rome, Georgia and raised in DeKalb County. He attended Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta.

He married Mattie Parker of Oxford, North Carolina, and they had one child, a daughter, Chandra Jones Foster. Chandra and her husband, Sam Foster, had two children, Sam III and Landon Avery.

Jones attended Clark College (B.A., Divinity, 1941); Gammon Theological Seminary (M.A., Divinity, 1944); Oberlin College (M.A., Sacred Theology, 1950); and Boston University (Ph.D., Theology, 1957). He also received two honorary degrees: a Doctor of Ministry from Vanderbilt University (1972), and a Doctor of Divinity from Clark College (1985). In 1972 Boston University awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Award. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

A United Methodist minister, Jones served as pastor of Heck Chapel (Griffin, Ga.), Ariel Bowen (Atlanta, Ga.), and of Stanley Church (Chattanooga, Tenn.); as district superintendent of the Tennessee Conference; and as president of the Association of United Methodist Theological Schools and the Society of Christian Ethics. He was also an executive secretary of Christian Education of both the Georgia and Alabama conferences of the United Methodist Church.

Jones also worked as a professor of religion and philosophy at Wiley College (Marshall, Tex.).

He served as President of Gammom Theological Seminary from 1967-1985. After retiring from Gammon, Jones became the Chaplain-Counselor for the Atlanta University Center and Robert W. Woodruff Library (where his office was located), and served as adjunct faculty for Clark Atlanta University. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Clark Atlanta University, and founded the AU Learned Society.

A classmate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s while at Boston University, Jones was an active member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and served as Treasurer and a member of the Board of Directors. He participated in other forms of public service as a member of the Mayor's Biracial Committee (Chattanooga, Tenn.); the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Community Action Program for Economic Opportunity; and the Governor's Committee to Investigate Racial Problems (Forsyth County, Ga.).

Jones wrote four books on African-American theology, including Black Awareness: A Theology of Hope (1971); A Christian Ethics for Black Theology: The Politics of Liberation (1974); and Color of God (1987). He also wrote many articles, papers, workshops and courses; many of them were related to African-American theology and the role of African-Americans in the United Methodist Church.