Jerry L. Jones

An African American born in 1947 in the Southwest Virginia small town of Glade Spring, Dr. Jerry L. Jones attended public schools in the era of segregation. He holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Virginia State University and a doctoral degree from Virginia Tech. Starting his teaching career as a high school teacher in Baltimore in 1969, he became a professor at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond in 1974. Returning to his hometown in 2001 to take care of his elderly mother, he continued his teaching career at Emory & Henry College, an institution located only four miles from his birthplace. With 52 years in education, Jones retired in 2021. He provides a unique prospective about society, education, and minority status in America—past and present.

When Jerry Jones’s mother, Mary Waugh, finished the seventh grade in the 1920s, there was no high school for Black children in Washington County, Virginia. She and one of her brothers were homeschooled during the eighth grade by a paid teacher. Later, Mary and her brother were sent to Morristown Junior College in Tennessee which—at that point in time—had a high school department. The author details four generations of black public school education in his hometown, from his great-grandfather (a former slave) to his own education, which involved being bused about 60 miles a day to and from high school.

With more than fifty years as a teacher, Jones writes his books as a tribute to the struggles that many African Americans faced in their pursuit of an education. The stories about his family may not be overly unique. However, these stories are representative of the time and of the geographic location. The education of Negro children in the early years of the twentieth century in most Southern school districts was not a priority. This was a case of separate and unequal—a situation which took decades and federal intervention to remedy. Hesitant to call his book autobiographical, Jones does detail many of his life experiences—tracing his journey from the segregated public schools of Virginia, to his college experiences at the historically black Virginia State University, and to his teaching career in Baltimore, Richmond, and Emory. Additionally, he analyzes his own shortcomings and reflects on his personal traits and strengths.