Rev. James E. Jones; First Black to Head School Board

The Rev. James E. Jones, Presbyterian minister, civil rights activist and the first black president of the Los Angeles Board of Education, has died.

He was 82.

Jones, who served on the school board from 1965 to 1969 and was elected president in 1968, died Wednesday in Lake Elsinore, Calif., his daughter Lois E. Fountain said Monday.

After the 1965 Watts riots, Jones was named by then-Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr. to the eight-member McCone Commission to study the factors behind the riots and ways to correct them. Considered the most liberal of the panel and one of only two experienced in race relations, Jones later criticized the group for failing to spend enough time in South-Central Los Angeles before making its report.

When Jones was elected president of the school board, The Times editorialized that the action “underscores the board’s commitment both to racial integration and to improving the quality of education for disadvantaged children.”

Only the second black to serve on the board, following music teacher Fay E. Allen, who was a member in 1939, Jones advocated voluntary busing to integrate Los Angeles schools and a year-round school schedule to eliminate overcrowding.

Jones also served on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s White House planning conference titled “To Fulfill These Rights” and was a consultant to the U.S. Office of Education and to the national advisory committee planning the “Sesame Street” television program.

He was founder of the National Caucus of Black School Board Members.

After marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., in the 1960s, Jones pursued civil rights causes as an active member of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, the Presbyterian Interracial Council, the Urban League and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Addressing a Los Angeles national convention of civil rights workers in 1966, Jones urged them “to teach the people in Watts the dangers of black nationalism, communism, of Birchism and Goldwaterism” and to avoid creating “a black concentration camp” in Los Angeles.

He served as pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2230 W. Jefferson Blvd., for 26 years. He also was named to national general councils of the Presbyterian Church.

Born in Jackson, Mich., Jones studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Union Theological Seminary in New York and Wayne State University in Detroit.

He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Mildred “Mimi” Millben Jones; a son, Roger; two daughters, Judith K. Beaubien and Lois E. Fountain; a brother, Elwin; two sisters, Juanita Allen and Marguerite Jackson; and five grandchildren.

Memorial services are scheduled for 4 p.m. Oct. 11, at Westminster Presbyterian Church.

The family has requested that any memorial donations be made to the Rev. James E. Jones Scholarship Fund at that church.