Episode description

In honor of Black History Month, Google is excited to welcome Dr. Clarence Jones - author, lawyer, personal counsel, advisor and friend to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 1962, Martin Luther King wrote a letter recommending his lawyer and advisor, Clarence B. Jones, to the New York State Bar, stating: “Ever since I have known Mr. Jones, I have always seen him as a man of sound judgment, deep insights, and great dedication. I am also convinced that he is a man of great integrity.”

Jones joined the team of lawyers defending Dr. King in the midst of King’s 1960 tax fraud trial, which was resolved in King’s favor in May of 1960. After King’s arrest in Birmingham, Jones secretly smuggled King’s handwritten letters from jail, writings that were later printed and distributed nationally as the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Jones continued to function as King’s lawyer and advisor through the remainder of his life, assisting him in drafting the “I Have a Dream” speech and preserving King’s copyright of the momentous address, acting as part of the successful defense team for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan, and contributing with Vincent Harding and Andrew Young to King’s “Beyond Vietnam” address at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4th 1967.

In summing up his sentiments on King’s life, Jones remarked in a 2007 interview: “Except for Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Martin Luther King, Jr., in 12 years and 4 months from 1956 to 1968, did more to achieve political, economic, and social justice in America than any other event or person in the previous 400 years.”

Originally published in February of 2012.

Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.