AP —
Clarence B. Jones, a former speechwriter and confidante of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who helped pen his famous “I Have A Dream” speech, has died. He was 95.
Jones died Friday at a senior living community in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Cupertino, according to a statement released by the family, who was at his side.
“Our father lived a life of conscience,” the Jones’ family said Tuesday. “He believed, until his final days, that an idea” is “more powerful than the march of any army. We are grateful beyond words for the love, the prayers, and the friendships that sustained him, and us, across this long and remarkable life.”
As King’s personal attorney, Jones was heavily involved in some of the key moments of the Civil Rights Movement. He is credited with smuggling pages of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” out of his cell and writing many up until the assassination of the civil rights icon in 1968.
