Jones for the defense - lawyer Elaine R. Jones

Black Enterprise, August, 1993 by Caroline V. Clarke, Jonathan Sapers

After the 12-year Reagan-bush era, during which time many of the civil rights gains of the '60s were reversed or went unenforced, there is much work to be done. And Jones appears to be just the type of person to do it.

Building Coalitions Amidst Chaos

She has a rare gift. Jones is believable and instantly likeable. She has a common touch that in no way undermines her lightning quick intellect. And she knows it. "I've always been plain-spoken, without guile," Jones says. "Whatever I tell you is what I think. That honesty has worked for me. And when times are the worst, that's when honesty serves us best."

If that's true, then Jones will be calling upon that "honesty" in spades. Although she puts a can-do face on things, Jones has ascended to LDF's top spot at a point when the organization and the country are at a difficult and crucial crossroads. For more than a decade, the group was forced to struggle against losing the civil rights gains it had already won. Now, with images of a bruised and brutalized Rodney King still emblazoned in the nation's consciousness, it's time to get back to the business of making new strides in civil rights.

To do that, LDF will have to expand its reach beyond lawmakers and courtrooms to community groups and politicians. "I have to broaden the role of the LDF, without becoming a legal aid society," says Jones.

Things are much more complicated now than they were in the early days of the LDF, says one LDF insider. "LDF is in the midst of that chaos. The goals used to be clear and everyone wanted the same things. That's not the way it is now."

Coalitions are becoming all-important. Whether it's teaming up with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund to keep a Harlem hospital from moving its services uptown or working with the West Dallas Coalition for Environmental Justice to fight for the cleanup of polluted soil in a poor Texas neighborhood, coming together with other groups is a necessary "power move," says Jones. But with so many factions within the civil rights arena and so many egos at play, such alliances are not easy to build.

Beyond that, LDF has a bit of an image problem. The 53-year-old organization is still largely associated with its founder and first director-counsel, the late Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, his hallmark case Brown v. Board of Education and the NAACP. Its history is rich, but Jones must beware of letting the organization get trapped by the vestiges of the past.

LDF has had three leaders since Marshall - Jones is the fourth. It has fought and won innumerable lawsuits since Brown. In addition to the Shoney's victory, since Jones took over, LDF convinced the state of California to provide free lead poisoning tests for 500,000 poor children, mostly black and Hispanic. California was the first state to buckle after LDF filed suit in Texas over this issue in five states (Colorado, New York and North Carolina are the others).

Still, pressed to name one major LDF victory in the last 25 years, even the well-informed are likely to come up blank. Jones, who counts among her admirers many in the biting Washington press (a former Legal Times columnist once suggested her for the U.S. Supreme Court), must keep LDF's name and achievements in the spotlight.