France honors La. veteran, civil rights champion

16th March 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer

It has been said that much of the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement was generated when Black World War II troops, who had fought for the cause of freedom on foreign soil, came home to find their own freedoms restricted and stripped away by an America unwilling to face up to its own demons of oppression and segregation.

If that indeed was the case, that African-Americans – and many of their multicultural allies in the United States – finished fighting one battle before waging another one, then Johnnie Jones exemplifies that realization and that transition.

Jones, like thousands of former GIs, prepared for the Civil Rights Movement by girding their spirit against European fascism.

“[World War II] gave me courage, and I realized that a lot of places in this country needed to change,” Jones told The Louisiana Weekly last week. “We sacrificed all we had in the war, and when we were denied our rights for so long, we didn’t let that stand in our way.”

As an army warrant officer in France, first on the beaches of Normandy and then in the battle for Northern France, Jones earned numerous distinctions for his war service, and when he returned home to Louisiana in 1945, he set about earning first a bachelor’s and then a law degree from Southern University.

Jones was then recruited by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1953 to lead the successful Baton Rouge bus boycott, one of the earliest victories of the Civil Rights Movement. Following that triumph, Jones engaged on a 40-year legal and political career in which he battled for civil rights and social justice in Louisiana.

For those twin accomplishments – helping liberate France from Nazi rule, then striving to liberate his fellow Americans at home – Jones was honored by Vincent Sciama, the Consul General of France in Louisiana, who bestowed the 100-year-old American veteran with the Legion d’honneur at the rank of Chevalier.

The ceremony took place at the Residence de France of the Consul General on Prytania Street on March 9, with family, friends, and French and American officials present. After addressing Jones and the crowd in attendance, Sciama, representing French President Emmanuel Macron, draped the medal over Jones’ head as cameras and phones flashed and Jones beamed with a smile.

“You risked your young life for the liberation of Europe,” Sciama told Jones in opening comments. “… As a very young man, you left your family behind to fight the fiercest battle in modern history.”

Sciama stressed that the country of France remains in gratitude to American soldiers in general, and, on this day, Johnnie Jones in particular, adding that “[t]he French people will never forget that American soldiers restored our freedom when we needed it most.”

“You said you are no hero,” Sciama said, “but I beg to differ.”

The Legion d’honneur – or the Legion of Honour in English – is the highest French honor for military and civil merits. It was created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.

The ceremony began with comments from U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, who said that he knew about Jones’ career as a Civil Rights activist, attorney and Louisiana state representative in Baton Rouge, but when he discovered about Jones’ much decorated military service and World War II experience, he was blown away by the veteran’s life story and felt humbled to be a part of the Legion of Honour event.

“I am so honored to be at the ceremony where you are so honored,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy said Jones fought in one country “to ensure all people [in France] would be treated the way they should be treated,” then returned stateside to continue the same fight to make sure America was also a place “where people are treated the way they should be treated.”

Following his lead role in the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, Jones worked as an attorney for more than a half-century, taking on a variety of cases and clients in defense of individual and civil rights.

From 1953-54, Jones represented several African Americans who sued for access to a Baton Rouge city park golf course. Later in 1954, Jones was one of two Black attorneys who drew the ire of white officials as the pair backed about 30 Black children who attempted to register for an all-white public school, a move that prompted a sketchy state bar association inquiry of the two lawyers.

By the end of 1954, the national press had taken notice of Jones and other NAACP attorneys and activists who had threatened to bring an end to segregation and oppression in Louisiana. In December 1954, Pittsburgh Courier reporters Robert M. Ratcliffe and A.M. Rivera Jr. wrote that Jones and his colleagues were not to be trifled with.

“The pompous little political bosses of Louisiana are shaking in their battle-scarred Confederate boots,” they wrote.

“… NAACP officials throughout the State of Louisiana take all of this [intimidation attempts by whites] with a smile,” the writers added. “They have no fears. They continue to map their strategy, smoothly and calmly, refusing to expose their ace card.”

In 1960, Jones took on the defense of 16 Southern University students who had been arrested and convicted after participating in a lunch counter sit-in, and in 1962, Jones defended the Rev. B. Elton Cox, a North Carolina minister and field secretary for the Congress for Racial Equality who had been arrested for civil disobedience at a protest in Baton Rouge in late 1961 and sentenced to four months in jail. Jones defended Cox even though the later had received well publicized death threats.

Jones joined with revered New Orleans attorney and NAACP executive A.P. Tureaud in fighting to desegregate all East Baton Rouge Parish public schools. Also serving on the defense were high-profile civil rights attorneys Constance Baker Motley, Jack Greenberg and Norman Amaker. And in 1964, Jones was part of the legal team that successfully fought before the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a Louisiana law requiring the publication of the race of candidates on nomination forms and ballots for public office in the state.

One of Jones’ most daring cases came in 1962-63, when he served as his defense for two Black Muslims from New Orleans, who had been ordered to appear before the Louisiana legislature’s Committee on Un-American Activities. Newspaper reports at the time referred to Islam as a “Muslim cult.”

Also in the 1960s, Jones launched a trailblazing career in politics that, while not always successful, raised the profile of African-American candidates in Baton Rouge and encouraged other candidates to follow in Jones’ wake. He ran unsuccessfully for district attorney and district judge.

In 1967, he was among 26 African-American candidates across Louisiana running for seats in the all-white State Legislature. Jones failed to gain election that year, but four years later he ran again, this time winning State District 67 in Baton Rouge, eventually serving for one term ending in 1976.

In brief remarks last week after receiving the Legion of Honour award, Jones told those in attendance that if given a chance to fight for freedom, including helping to liberate France, all over again, he would, because it was his duty as an American.

“I was proud to be an American, and I was proud to do what I had to do,” he said. Jones added that he felt a level of freedom among the French people that he frequently was accorded in his home country, and as a result, he will always hold France close in his heart.

“Your country has always been a friend of ours, and I will always be a friend of your country,” he said.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, Jones told The Louisiana Weekly that he worked for change in America because both he and his country had no other choice.

“I knew it was coming,” he said. “It had to come.”

Other American military men and women who have received the Legion of Honor include Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Audie Murphy, Chester Nimitz, Colin Powell and Chuck Yaeger, as well as numerous GIs and sailors who recorded outstanding military service over the last 200-plus years.

In addition, many American civilians, scientists, entertainers and entrepreneurs have been bestowed with the honor, including Miles Davis, Elie Wiesel, Bob Dylan, Steven Spielberg, Eleanor Roosevelt, Toni Morrison, Wynton Marsalis, Quincy Jones and Josephine Baker, a singer and activist who served as a French Resistance agent during World War II.

This article originally published in the March 16, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.