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Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones (view source)
Revision as of 03:30, April 12, 2021
, 03:30, April 12, 2021Created page with "{{Infobox person | name = Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Sr. (African-American educator and administrator at Grambling State University) | image=R.W.E. Jones and F. Jay Taylor of..."
{{Infobox person
| name = Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Sr.
(African-American educator and administrator at Grambling State University)
| image=R.W.E. Jones and F. Jay Taylor of LA.jpg
| birth_date=August 6, 1905
| birth_place=[[Lake Charles]]<br/>[[Louisiana]], [[United States|USA]]
| death_date=April 9, 1982 (aged 76)
| death_place=[[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]], Louisiana<br>
'''Resting place''':Grambling Memorial Garden in Lincoln Parish
'''Alma mater''':<br>
Southern University ([[Baton Rouge]])<br>
[[Columbia University]]
|spouse=Mildred Shay Jones (married 1937; not married at the time of his death)<br>
'''Children''':<br>
Ralph Jones, Jr.<br>
John Arthur Jones<br>
Grandsons:<br>
Ralph Eldridge Jones<br>
Ernest Emerson Jones<br>
Warren Waldo Jones
|religion=[[Baptist]]}}
[[File:R.W.E. Jones receives L.L.D. from Louisiana Tech.jpg|200px|right|thumb|R.W.E. Jones in 1969 receives the honorary [[LL.D.]] degree from [[Louisiana Tech University]] president [[F. Jay Taylor]].]]
'''Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Sr.''' (August 6, 1905 – April 9, 1982), also known as '''Ralph W. E. Jones''' or '''Prez Jones''', was from 1936 until his retirement in 1977 the second president of the historically black Grambling State University in Grambling, just east of [[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]] in northern [[Louisiana]].
==Background==
The grandson of a [[slave]], Jones was born in [[Lake Charles]] in southwestern Louisiana. His father, John Sebastian Jones, was the first dean of historically black Southern University in [[Baton Rouge]], from which Jones received his bachelor's degree. His mother, the former Marie Morrison, was a schoolteacher in Lake Charles.<ref name=nyt>{{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/11/obituaries/ralph-we-jones-78-ex-head-of-grambling.html|title=Ralph W. E. Jones, Ex-Head of Grambling|publisher=''[[The New York Times]]''|date=April 11, 1982|accessdate=July 7, 2011}}</ref> Jones obtained a master's degree from [[Columbia University]] in [[New York City]]. Though often addressed as "Doctor," Jones did not have an earned doctorate but honorary awards from [[Louisiana Tech University]] in Ruston and the University of Baltimore in [[Maryland]].<ref name=rwej>{{cite web|url=http://contentdm.auctr.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=%2FGSBG&CISOPTR=125&DMSCALE=100.00000&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=600&DMMODE=viewer&DMFULL=0&DMOLDSCALE=9.97340&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&DMTHUMB=1&REC=18&DMROTATE=0&x=10&y=116|title=Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, "Then Sings My Soul, My Savior, God To Thee; How Great Thou Art, How Great Thou Art!"|publisher=contentdm.auctr.edu|accessdate=July 8, 2011}}</ref>
==Grambling career==
After a short stint at the former Lamson College in [[Alexandria, Louisiana|Alexandria]], Louisiana, Jones came to Grambling in 1926, when it was the two-year Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institution.<ref name=rwej/> There he taught chemistry, physics, and mathematics. Having been a player in the former [[Negro League]], Jones launched the Grambling baseball team. He also was the dean of men and the college registrar. Under his tenure, Grambling grew from 120 students to a peak of 4,200, nearly all African Americans. The school grew from a few modest buildings to a multimillion-dollar physical plant under Jones's leadership.<ref name=rwej/> When Jones was only thirty, he became both the president of the school and the baseball coach as well.<ref name=nyt/> His actual total Grambling service, 1926 to 1977, exceeded fifty years.<ref name=rwej/>
Jones started the college marching band<ref name=nyt/> and even composed the Grambling Tigers ''[[alma mater]],'' For seventeen years, Wilbert Ellis, a Ruston native and 1959 Grambling graduate, was Jones's assistant baseball coach. Between 1958 and 1967, Jones's teams rumbled through conference play, winning seven titles between 1958 and 1967 and gaining induction into the [[National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics]] Hall of Fame after leading his teams to national baseball tournaments in 1961, 1963, 1964, and 1967. He was national coach of the year in 1967.<ref name=legend>{{cite web|url=http://gramblinglegends.net/Ralph-Waldo-Emerson-Jones.html|title=Grambling Legends: Ralph Waldo Emerson "Prez" Jones|publisher=gramblinglegends.net|accessdate=July 7, 2011}}</ref>
In 1941, Jones hired the inexperienced Eddie Robinson as the football coach of the Grambling Tigers. Robinson amassed a still-standing Division I record for career wins—408—from 1941 tol 1997. Of Jones, Robinson said, "Boy, oh, boy, he was some kind of guy. There were many times I thought that if he hadn't come along to hire me, that I might have gotten caught on the streets in Baton Rouge. I thank God that Dr. Jones just grabbed me and took me. ... President Jones was my teacher, even when I did not realize it."<ref name=legend/> The Grambling campus is now the home of the Eddie Robinson Museum.
Jones's last fifteen years as the Grambling president coincided with that of the Tech president [[F. Jay Taylor]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/shreveporttimes/obituary.aspx?n=f-jay-taylor&pid=151095320|title=Dr. F. Jay Taylor|publisher=''The Shreveport Times]],'' May 17, 2011|accessdate=May 17, 2011}}</ref> who in 1969 presented Jones with an honorary doctorate.<ref name=rwej/> Other area college presidents during Jones's latter tenure were [[Arnold R. Kilpatrick]] of [[Northwestern State University]] in [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://northwesternalumni.com/s/859/index.aspx?id=859&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1141&ecid=1141&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=791|title=Home Named in Honor of Former NSU President|publisher=Northwesternalumni.com|accessdate=May 22, 2009}}</ref> and [[George T. Walker]] of the [[University of Louisiana at Monroe]], then known as Northeast Louisiana University, in [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thenewsstar/obituary.aspx?n=george-thomas-walker&pid=152392279|title=George T. Walker|publisher=''The Monroe News Star''|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref> Like Taylor, Walker, and Kilpatrick, Jones worked with governors and legislators to obtain vital funding for his institution.<ref name=rwej/>
==Death and legacy==
Jones died at the age of seventy-six in Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston. He had complications from gall bladder surgery.<ref name=nyt/> He was a deacon at the New Rocky Valley [[Baptist]] Church in Grambling. Jones was survived by two sons, Ralph Jones, Jr., and John Arthur Jones, both of [[Baltimore]], [[Maryland]], three grandsons, Ralph Eldridge Jones, Ellison Emerson Jones, and Warren Waldo Jones, and five sisters. The obituary does not indicate whether Jones was divorced or a widower; his wife, Mildred, is not listed as a surviving widow. Nor is there an indication of a burial site.<ref name=rwej/>
In 2006, Frances Swayzer Conley of [[Shreveport]], an [[English]] professor at Bossier Parish Community College in [[Bossier Citiy]], published the illustrated book ''Prez Lives! Remembering Grambling's Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones''.<ref>{{cite web|url=|title=''Prez Lives! Remembering Grambling's Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones''|publisher=Trafford Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4120-9653-9|accessdate=July 7, 2011}}</ref> Jones developed the slogan: "Grambling: Where Everybody is Somebody."<ref name=rwej/>
Black author James O. McHenry refers to Jones, accordingly:
<blockquote>
Prez was one of the greatest men that I have ever met because he was right down here with you. He was a country boy himself, and he taught you everything. ... Prez knew where you came from and what you hadn't been exposed to ... He didn't impose upon you to do anything because he taught you what you were supposed to know. ... He would call us into meetings and talk to us like we were his children. He knew what his black people needed. ... He believed in taking you from where he found you and progressing from there. He would say "Don't tell me what you don't know. Just tell me that you want to learn." That's the kind of man Prez was. ....<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.scribd.com/doc/41088013/The-Indigenous-Black-People-of-Monroe-Louisiana-And-the-Surrounding-Cities-Towns-and-Villages|author=James O. McHenry|title=The Indigenous Black People of Monroe, Louisiana and the Surrounding Cities, Towns, and Villages: A 100-Year Documentary|p. 100|publisher=Self-published, 2010: ISBN 978-1-4535-8859-8|accessdate=July 6, 2013}}</ref></blockquote>
In May 2011, the Grambling baseball stadium was named in Jones's honor. On July 3, 2011, Jones was posthumously inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in [[Lubbock]], Lubbock]], [[Texas]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gsutigers.com/news/2011/6/25/BB_0625115818.aspx|title=
Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones to be Inducted into College Baseball Hall of Fame|publisher=gsutigers.com|date= June 25, 2011|accessdate=July 7, 2011}}</ref>
In addition to the baseball stadium, R.W.E. Jones Drive in Grambling is named in his honor.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Ralph Waldo Emerson}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:African Americans]]
[[Category:Educators]]
[[Category:Baseball]]
[[Category:Coaches]]
[[Category:Baptists]]
| name = Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Sr.
(African-American educator and administrator at Grambling State University)
| image=R.W.E. Jones and F. Jay Taylor of LA.jpg
| birth_date=August 6, 1905
| birth_place=[[Lake Charles]]<br/>[[Louisiana]], [[United States|USA]]
| death_date=April 9, 1982 (aged 76)
| death_place=[[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]], Louisiana<br>
'''Resting place''':Grambling Memorial Garden in Lincoln Parish
'''Alma mater''':<br>
Southern University ([[Baton Rouge]])<br>
[[Columbia University]]
|spouse=Mildred Shay Jones (married 1937; not married at the time of his death)<br>
'''Children''':<br>
Ralph Jones, Jr.<br>
John Arthur Jones<br>
Grandsons:<br>
Ralph Eldridge Jones<br>
Ernest Emerson Jones<br>
Warren Waldo Jones
|religion=[[Baptist]]}}
[[File:R.W.E. Jones receives L.L.D. from Louisiana Tech.jpg|200px|right|thumb|R.W.E. Jones in 1969 receives the honorary [[LL.D.]] degree from [[Louisiana Tech University]] president [[F. Jay Taylor]].]]
'''Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Sr.''' (August 6, 1905 – April 9, 1982), also known as '''Ralph W. E. Jones''' or '''Prez Jones''', was from 1936 until his retirement in 1977 the second president of the historically black Grambling State University in Grambling, just east of [[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]] in northern [[Louisiana]].
==Background==
The grandson of a [[slave]], Jones was born in [[Lake Charles]] in southwestern Louisiana. His father, John Sebastian Jones, was the first dean of historically black Southern University in [[Baton Rouge]], from which Jones received his bachelor's degree. His mother, the former Marie Morrison, was a schoolteacher in Lake Charles.<ref name=nyt>{{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/11/obituaries/ralph-we-jones-78-ex-head-of-grambling.html|title=Ralph W. E. Jones, Ex-Head of Grambling|publisher=''[[The New York Times]]''|date=April 11, 1982|accessdate=July 7, 2011}}</ref> Jones obtained a master's degree from [[Columbia University]] in [[New York City]]. Though often addressed as "Doctor," Jones did not have an earned doctorate but honorary awards from [[Louisiana Tech University]] in Ruston and the University of Baltimore in [[Maryland]].<ref name=rwej>{{cite web|url=http://contentdm.auctr.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=%2FGSBG&CISOPTR=125&DMSCALE=100.00000&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=600&DMMODE=viewer&DMFULL=0&DMOLDSCALE=9.97340&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&DMTHUMB=1&REC=18&DMROTATE=0&x=10&y=116|title=Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, "Then Sings My Soul, My Savior, God To Thee; How Great Thou Art, How Great Thou Art!"|publisher=contentdm.auctr.edu|accessdate=July 8, 2011}}</ref>
==Grambling career==
After a short stint at the former Lamson College in [[Alexandria, Louisiana|Alexandria]], Louisiana, Jones came to Grambling in 1926, when it was the two-year Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institution.<ref name=rwej/> There he taught chemistry, physics, and mathematics. Having been a player in the former [[Negro League]], Jones launched the Grambling baseball team. He also was the dean of men and the college registrar. Under his tenure, Grambling grew from 120 students to a peak of 4,200, nearly all African Americans. The school grew from a few modest buildings to a multimillion-dollar physical plant under Jones's leadership.<ref name=rwej/> When Jones was only thirty, he became both the president of the school and the baseball coach as well.<ref name=nyt/> His actual total Grambling service, 1926 to 1977, exceeded fifty years.<ref name=rwej/>
Jones started the college marching band<ref name=nyt/> and even composed the Grambling Tigers ''[[alma mater]],'' For seventeen years, Wilbert Ellis, a Ruston native and 1959 Grambling graduate, was Jones's assistant baseball coach. Between 1958 and 1967, Jones's teams rumbled through conference play, winning seven titles between 1958 and 1967 and gaining induction into the [[National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics]] Hall of Fame after leading his teams to national baseball tournaments in 1961, 1963, 1964, and 1967. He was national coach of the year in 1967.<ref name=legend>{{cite web|url=http://gramblinglegends.net/Ralph-Waldo-Emerson-Jones.html|title=Grambling Legends: Ralph Waldo Emerson "Prez" Jones|publisher=gramblinglegends.net|accessdate=July 7, 2011}}</ref>
In 1941, Jones hired the inexperienced Eddie Robinson as the football coach of the Grambling Tigers. Robinson amassed a still-standing Division I record for career wins—408—from 1941 tol 1997. Of Jones, Robinson said, "Boy, oh, boy, he was some kind of guy. There were many times I thought that if he hadn't come along to hire me, that I might have gotten caught on the streets in Baton Rouge. I thank God that Dr. Jones just grabbed me and took me. ... President Jones was my teacher, even when I did not realize it."<ref name=legend/> The Grambling campus is now the home of the Eddie Robinson Museum.
Jones's last fifteen years as the Grambling president coincided with that of the Tech president [[F. Jay Taylor]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/shreveporttimes/obituary.aspx?n=f-jay-taylor&pid=151095320|title=Dr. F. Jay Taylor|publisher=''The Shreveport Times]],'' May 17, 2011|accessdate=May 17, 2011}}</ref> who in 1969 presented Jones with an honorary doctorate.<ref name=rwej/> Other area college presidents during Jones's latter tenure were [[Arnold R. Kilpatrick]] of [[Northwestern State University]] in [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://northwesternalumni.com/s/859/index.aspx?id=859&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1141&ecid=1141&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=791|title=Home Named in Honor of Former NSU President|publisher=Northwesternalumni.com|accessdate=May 22, 2009}}</ref> and [[George T. Walker]] of the [[University of Louisiana at Monroe]], then known as Northeast Louisiana University, in [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thenewsstar/obituary.aspx?n=george-thomas-walker&pid=152392279|title=George T. Walker|publisher=''The Monroe News Star''|accessdate=July 6, 2011}}</ref> Like Taylor, Walker, and Kilpatrick, Jones worked with governors and legislators to obtain vital funding for his institution.<ref name=rwej/>
==Death and legacy==
Jones died at the age of seventy-six in Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston. He had complications from gall bladder surgery.<ref name=nyt/> He was a deacon at the New Rocky Valley [[Baptist]] Church in Grambling. Jones was survived by two sons, Ralph Jones, Jr., and John Arthur Jones, both of [[Baltimore]], [[Maryland]], three grandsons, Ralph Eldridge Jones, Ellison Emerson Jones, and Warren Waldo Jones, and five sisters. The obituary does not indicate whether Jones was divorced or a widower; his wife, Mildred, is not listed as a surviving widow. Nor is there an indication of a burial site.<ref name=rwej/>
In 2006, Frances Swayzer Conley of [[Shreveport]], an [[English]] professor at Bossier Parish Community College in [[Bossier Citiy]], published the illustrated book ''Prez Lives! Remembering Grambling's Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones''.<ref>{{cite web|url=|title=''Prez Lives! Remembering Grambling's Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones''|publisher=Trafford Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4120-9653-9|accessdate=July 7, 2011}}</ref> Jones developed the slogan: "Grambling: Where Everybody is Somebody."<ref name=rwej/>
Black author James O. McHenry refers to Jones, accordingly:
<blockquote>
Prez was one of the greatest men that I have ever met because he was right down here with you. He was a country boy himself, and he taught you everything. ... Prez knew where you came from and what you hadn't been exposed to ... He didn't impose upon you to do anything because he taught you what you were supposed to know. ... He would call us into meetings and talk to us like we were his children. He knew what his black people needed. ... He believed in taking you from where he found you and progressing from there. He would say "Don't tell me what you don't know. Just tell me that you want to learn." That's the kind of man Prez was. ....<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.scribd.com/doc/41088013/The-Indigenous-Black-People-of-Monroe-Louisiana-And-the-Surrounding-Cities-Towns-and-Villages|author=James O. McHenry|title=The Indigenous Black People of Monroe, Louisiana and the Surrounding Cities, Towns, and Villages: A 100-Year Documentary|p. 100|publisher=Self-published, 2010: ISBN 978-1-4535-8859-8|accessdate=July 6, 2013}}</ref></blockquote>
In May 2011, the Grambling baseball stadium was named in Jones's honor. On July 3, 2011, Jones was posthumously inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in [[Lubbock]], Lubbock]], [[Texas]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gsutigers.com/news/2011/6/25/BB_0625115818.aspx|title=
Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones to be Inducted into College Baseball Hall of Fame|publisher=gsutigers.com|date= June 25, 2011|accessdate=July 7, 2011}}</ref>
In addition to the baseball stadium, R.W.E. Jones Drive in Grambling is named in his honor.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Ralph Waldo Emerson}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:African Americans]]
[[Category:Educators]]
[[Category:Baseball]]
[[Category:Coaches]]
[[Category:Baptists]]