Home | Background | Lawyer | Wiley Austin Branton | Contact
Archie V. Jones came to Arkansas from the District of Columbia where he was born about 1877. He is listed in the archival records of Howard University School of Law as having earned his LL.B. degree in 1899. He was licensed to practice by the local circuit court on January 15, 1899, as he appears in the 1900-01 Little Rock (Pulaski County, Arkansas) City Directory and in the 1900 Census as an attorney. Archie Jones was admitted to practice before the state supreme court on October 15, 1901. Between 1900 and 1903, he shared an office with Scipio Africanus Jones (no relation). As of 1901, he was a member of the Wonder State Bar Association, a Black lawyers organization.
In 1902, he, along with Scipio Jones and J. A. Robinson created the Independent Political League and offered their own slate of candidates for county offices in opposition to the regular political parties. That same year, Archie V. Jones was nominated as a candidate for the state senate. He does not appear in directory listings between 1903-1916, but reappears in listings as a sole practitioner between 1916-20. Thereafter, he again disappears from the records.
Sources: Judith Kilpatrick, “(EXTRA)Ordinary Men: African-American Lawyers and Civil Rights in Arkansas Before 1950,” 53 Ark. Law Rev. 299, 347 n350, 357 n434, 362 n471, 372 (2000); Class List, Howard University School of Law, Library Archives; The Colored Lawyers, Arkansas Gazette, 7/31/1901;