BATON ROUGE, La. — Johnnie A. Jones Sr., a Louisiana civil rights legal professional and World Warfare II veteran who was wounded throughout the D-Day invasion of Normandy, has died. Jones was 102 years outdated.
Jones’ goddaughter, Mada McDonald, instructed WAFB-TV that Jones died Saturday on the Louisiana Warfare Veterans’ House in Jackson, Louisiana.
Jones was born Nov. 30, 1919 in Laurel Hill, Louisiana and raised on Rosemound Plantation by his mother and father, who farmed 73 acres of land however insisted that their son get an training. He graduated from Southern College after which was drafted in 1942. He grew to become the Army’s first African American warrant officer. He was assigned to a unit accountable for unloading gear and provides onto Normandy.
Through the June 6, 1944 invasion — as Jones got here ashore on Omaha Seaside — he got here underneath fireplace from a German sniper. Jones grabbed his weapon and returned fireplace, a reminiscence that haunted him all his life.
“I nonetheless see him, I see him each evening,” Jones instructed The Related Press in a 2019 interview.
Jones nearly by no means made it to the beachhead that day. His ship hit a mine, and he was blown from the second deck to the primary. The explosion, “blew me sky excessive into the air,” Jones was quoted as saying in an Division of Veterans Affairs interview. Later, Jones bought hit with shrapnel when he didn’t hit the bottom quick sufficient throughout a bomb assault.
By the tip of World Warfare II, greater than 1,000,000 African People have been in uniform together with the famed Tuskegee Airmen and the 761st Tank Battalion. However they returned from the battle solely to come across discrimination again dwelling.
Jones instructed the AP in 2019 that after coming back from Europe, he needed to transfer to the again of a bus crammed with fellow troopers because it crossed the Mason-Dixon line separating North from South.
“I couldn’t sit with the troopers I had been on the battlefield with. I needed to go to the again of the bus,” mentioned Jones. Furthermore, whereas touring to New Orleans to get shrapnel faraway from his neck, Jones was pulled over by a white police officer and roughed up.
Such occasions served as a name to motion, to battle racism. He obtained a regulation diploma and was recruited in 1953 to assist set up a bus boycott in Baton Rouge and defend the individuals. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King used that occasion to plan his bigger bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, a number of years later.
Jones additionally defended college students arrested throughout sit-ins as civil rights protests gained momentum within the South. His automotive was bombed twice.
The French authorities in 2020 offered Jones with the Legion of Honor award for his World Warfare II service.
It took a long time for Jones’ sacrifice and braveness throughout World Warfare II to be acknowledged. In 2021 — at age 101 — he lastly obtained a Purple Coronary heart, which is awarded to U.S. service members killed or wounded in motion.
The Louisiana Digital Library has an interview with Jones on its web site.
Funeral preparations are pending, McDonald instructed the TV station.
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