Home | Background | Lawyers | Wiley Austin Branton | Contact
Theodore X. Jones was born on August 20, 1904, the son of attorney Japheth Farland and Eliza Jones in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), Arkansas. He attended the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama before reading law in his father’s office. He was admitted to practice law by the state supreme court on February 15, 1932, and entered into partnership with his father. In 1938, Theodore Jones was a member of the Wonder State Bar Association, a Black lawyers group. He was still practicing in the 1960s.
His practice concentrated on real estate issues, but he also was active in civic affairs. Jones was a boy scout leader, a charter member of the Elks, and a member of the Twentieth Century Club and the Masons. Aside from the practice of law, he was known for his skill as an electrician, apparently maintaining the pipe organ of St. Paul Baptist Church in Pine Bluff.
T.X. Jones served in the armed forces in World War II. After a first marriage that produced no children, he married Versie Barnett in 1945 and they had three children: Gwendolyn, Janice and Georgette. T.X. Jones died on October 22, 1968.
Sources: Judith Kilpatrick, “(EXTRA)Ordinary Men: African-American Lawyers and Civil Rights in Arkansas Before 1950,” 53 Ark. Law Rev. 299, 381 n630, 388 (2000); D.J. Albritton, The Black Men of Pine Bluff (1980, photograph); AR Supreme Court Admission Records; “20th Century Club” Directory, est 1927 – 52, rec’d from Henri Linton, UAPB 4/19/99;