Cornelius J. Jones (August 13, 1858 – March 13, 1931) was an African-American attorney, activist and politician who was active in Mississippi, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and Tennessee between approximately 1880 and 1931. In the 1890s, Jones became one of the first African-American attorneys to argue before the United States Supreme Court. Beginning in 1915, he participated in the movement to reclaim revenue from taxes collected on slave-grown cotton during the Civil War for formerly-enslaved cotton workers and their descendants. Working with the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association (MRB&PA), he sued the United States Treasury Department in 1915, in an attempt to access those funds. He served one term in the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1890 and 1891 as a Republican, and twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Mississippi's third district.Feldman, 116-122. Jones was also a promoter of Chase, Oklahoma, a short-lived attempt to establish an all-black town outside of Muskogee, Oklahoma.Feldman, 125-126.
Family background, education, and personal life Cornelius J. Jones was born on August 13, 1858, in Hinds County, Mississippi, the youngest surviving child and only surviving son of Cornelius Jones and Hannah Elizabeth Donaldson. He had two older sisters, Celia Ann and Sarah.Records for Hannah Jones, Celia Ann Jones, Sarah Jones, Cornelius Jones. U.S. Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874. Ancestry.com. Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2005. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8755/records/2285861900 United States Census: Year: 1900; Census Place: Greenville, Washington, Mississippi; Roll:832; Page: 26; Enumeration District: 0081. Ancestry.com. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7602/records/28507049 Jones' mother had been enslaved and he was born into slavery. His father's legal status prior to Emancipation is uncertain.Jones, Cornelius J. "Application for Enrollment as Mississippi Choctaw." U.S., Native American Applications for Enrollment in Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914. Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2397/records/11103 In 1903, Jones applied to the Dawes Commission for membership in the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, testifying that his father was one-half Choctaw and that his paternal great-grandfather, John (or Jack) Jones, had registered as a tribe member in 1830 under the terms of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Jones responded to the commissioners' question of whether either or both of his parents had been slaves by stating that his mother had been enslaved, but did not mention his father. Jones' application was rejected for lack of evidence, because while the commission's researchers identified a John Jones as a member of the Mississippi Choctaw they found no evidence linking Cornelius Jones to that man, and Jones had provided no documentation in support of his claim.
In 1864, Hannah Donaldson and Cornelius Jones Sr. were legally married in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the family remained after the Civil War. In 1870, when all of the members of the Jones family opened accounts with the Freedman's Bank, Cornelius Jones Sr. owned a farm and Hannah Jones' occupation was recorded as housekeeper.Record for Cornelius Jones Sr., U.S. Freedman's bank Records, 1865-1874. Ancestry.com. Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2005. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8755/records/227477
Jones attended Freedman's Bureau schools and the newly-established Alcorn University (now Alcorn State University) where he was a student from 1872 to 1878. After leaving Alcorn, he worked as a teacher in Louisiana and Mississippi. In 1885, he was a school principal in Mayersville, MississippiBrowning, 9. and in 1886 he was one of the organizers of a new school for black children in nearby Lake Providence, Louisiana. In 1880, he began to read law. His tutors included the McLaurin brothers of Brandon, Mississippi, one of whom, Anselm McLaurin, would later serve as governor of Mississippi and as a United States senator. Jones passed the Mississippi bar in 1888.Feldman, 99.
In 1881, Jones married Betty Julian of Vicksburg. They had two daughters, Gertrude and Quincella, before Betty Jones' death in 1884. During the 1880s and early 1890s, he lived in Issaquena County, Mississippi, first in Mayersville and then in the hamlet of Ben Lomond.Riser, 36. After his term in the Mississippi legislature as the delegate from Issaquena County, he moved to Greenville in neighboring Washington County, which became his home base for the next twelve years. During at least some of this time, he shared a home with his mother and daughters in Greenville, while also paying lengthy visits to Washington, DC.1900 United States Census: Year: 1900; Census Place: Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: 160, Page: 4, Enumeration District: 0047. Ancestry.com https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7602/records/7884738 In 1903, he moved to Muskogee, Indian Territory (part of Oklahoma from 1906), which would be his home for much of the rest of his life. He also continued to spend time in Washington, DC, and lived in Memphis, Tennessee, from 1915 to 1917 while he was working with the MRB&PA.
Jones was married at least twice after his first wife's death. On September 26, 1893, he married Sarah Elizabeth Disney, a 50-year-old widow from Maryland, at Chatham, Ontario, Canada.Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1942. Ancestry.com and Genealogical Research Library (Brampton, Ontario, Canada). Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2010. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7921/records/2440058 In the 1900 United States Census he was recorded as a widower. In his 1903 application for membership in the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, he testified that he was married to his second wife, that her name was Rosa A. Jones, and that she was not Choctaw. In 1919, he married Maggie C. Davis, a widow, in Muskogee.Oklahoma, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1890-1995. Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61379/records/64021360 Two years later, Maggie Jones filed for divorce, citing cruelty as the cause. Jones countersued, accusing his wife of refusing to do household chores and stating that she had agreed to "cancel their marriage obligation" in exchange for a payment of $3000.00. In the 1930 U.S. Census, he was recorded as a widower, living in Muskogee with a housekeeper,1930 United States Federal Census. Year: 1930; Census Place: Muskogee, Muskogee, Oklahoma; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 0045; FHL microfilm: 2341650. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2002. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6224/records/94357972 but a draft obituary in his family papers included an unnamed widow among his survivors.
Jones died in Muskogee on March 16, 1931, aged 72.
Legal and political career in Mississippi
Jones practiced law in Mississippi from 1888 to 1903. During this period, he appealed three cases to the United States Supreme Court, arguing two and serving as co-counsel in the third. He was politically active during the 1880s and 1890s, participating as a Republican at the local, state, and federal levels. By the mid-1880s, he had become a leader in the Issaquena County Republican Party, serving as a member of its Congressional Executive Committee in 1886 and as secretary of the Republican convention for Mississippi's Third Congressional District in 1888.Feldman, 102. He won election to the Mississippi state legislature for the 1890 term as the delegate for Issaquena County and ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 1896 and 1898. He challenged the results of both elections, but failed to overturn either one.
Jones' best-known activities during this period were related to the state constitution that Mississippi adopted in 1890.Feldman, 116. Known as the "Disenfranchisement Constitution," it was designed to prevent black men from voting. Jones opposed the call for a constitutional convention during his term in the legislature. The 1890 constitution ended a fifteen-year period during which some black men, such as Jones, were allowed to hold public office by the white Democratic elites who controlled the political process in Mississippi's black-majority counties through a combination of fraud, violence, intimidation, and acceptance of black Republicans as junior partners in politics.Riser, 38.Feldman, 101. After its adoption the state enacted laws designed to disenfranchise black voters, including a poll tax, selective felony disenfranchisement, voting by written secret ballot, which targeted illiterate voters, and an "understanding clause" that allowed illiterate but otherwise-qualified men to vote if an official accepted their explanation of a passage read from the state constitution.Finkelman, 1057. During the 1890s, Jones tried, through his appeals to the United States Supreme Court and election challenges in the House of Representatives, to achieve federal recognition that this electoral system violated the rights of black men under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.Riser, 41–44.
Legislative service and the 1890 constitution Jones served as the representative for Issaquena County in the Mississippi House of Representatives for Mississippi's 70th legislative session, which met during January and February 1890. He was one of six Republicans out of the 124 members of the House during that session; the six Republicans were also its only African-American members. Jones was assigned to the House Committee on Immigration and to a joint committee to investigate state officers.
During Jones' term, the legislature debated whether to call a state constitutional convention for later in the year. Jones spoke against the convention on January 23, 1890. His argument was that a new constitution was not needed to ensure the political dominance of white Mississippians, because they already had it under the current system. He also claimed that the pro-constitution party's plan to enact a literacy requirement for voters would prevent whites as well as blacks in the "more illiterate classes" from voting, and had the potential to lead to civic unrest.Feldman, 104. The bill authorizing the convention passed the house by a vote of 62 in favor, 41 against, with Jones voting against it.
In July 1890, Jones was nominated by a convention of black Republicans in Issaquena County to run for delegate to the upcoming constitutional convention, but his candidacy was opposed by the county's Republican establishment. The delegate position ultimately went to the Democratic candidate.
United States Supreme Court cases Between 1896 and 1898, Jones appealed three cases to the United States Supreme Court: Gibson v. Mississippi (162 U.S. 565 (1896)), Charley Smith v. Mississippi (162 U.S. 592 (1896)), and Williams v. Mississippi (170 U.S. 213 (1898)). All three appeals directly challenged Mississippi's use of whites-only juries as a violation of his black clients' constitutional right to a jury of their peers.Stavis, 607-608. Due to Mississippi's requirement that jurors be selected from county voter rolls, enacted as part of the 1890 constitution,Feldman, 106. these cases also attacked the portions of the constitution that had been designed to disenfranchise black men.