Civil Rights Leader Leaves Director’s Post After 26 Years

Robert M. Jones has retired as executive director of the National Conference of Christians and Jews Southern California Region, a post he has held for 26 years.

Jones, 61, of Alhambra, has long been a leader in interracial issues. He began his career as director of the group’s Kansas chapter, where he helped set up the first city human relations commission in the Midwest and conducted workshops on interracial issues.

In Kentucky during the early 1960s, Jones was active in the civil rights movement, and in 1965 worked to improve police and community relations after the Watts riots in Los Angeles.

More recently, Jones and the National Conference of Christians and Jews have spearheaded multiethnic programs for Southern California schools that experienced racial tension due to rapid demographic change.

On Wednesday, Jones will be honored by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission. He also has been appointed to a panel that will examine alleged brutality in the Sheriff’s Department.

Jones has been succeeded by James E. Hilvert, a former priest and business consultant at Theodore Barry & Associates who holds a master’s degree in philosophy from the Athenaeum of Ohio.

Prentice Deadrick, Pasadena community services coordinator, has been chosen as the manager for the city’s Northwest Community Plan.

Deadrick, 39, who has worked for the city for four years, will assume responsibility for implementing the ambitious plan to focus municipal attention on the neighborhood where most of the city’s blacks live.

Deadrick takes a salary cut of about $800 in his new $53,000-a-year job. “I’m actually going to work more for less,” he said, laughing. “I guess it’s a demonstration of my true commitment. I think that was the factor that got me selected.”

Deadrick, a doctoral candidate at UCLA, lives in Northwest Pasadena. He is a founder of the Black Males Forum, an influential group in the city.

In his new job, Deadrick replaces Ellen Reynolds, who is serving as acting director of Northwest programs.