Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Sr. (African-American educator, baseball coach, and administrator at Grambling State University)
Born	August 6, 1905 Lake Charles Louisiana, USA
Died	April 9, 1982 (aged 76) Ruston, Louisiana Resting place: Grambling Memorial Garden in Lincoln Parish Alma mater: Southern University (Baton Rouge) Columbia University
Spouse	Mildred Shay Jones (married 1937; not married at the time of his death) Children: Ralph Jones, Jr. John Arthur Jones Grandsons: Ralph Eldridge Jones Ernest Emerson Jones Warren Waldo Jones
Religion	Baptist

Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Sr. (August 6, 1905 – April 9, 1982), also known as Ralph W. E. Jones or Prez Jones, was from 1936 until his retirement in 1977 the second president of the historically black Grambling State University in Grambling, just east of Ruston in northern Louisiana.

Background[edit]

The grandson of a slave, Jones was born in Lake Charles in southwestern Louisiana. His father, John Sebastian Jones, was the first dean of historically black Southern University in Baton Rouge, from which Jones received his bachelor's degree. His mother, the former Marie Morrison, was a schoolteacher in Lake Charles.^[1] Jones obtained a master's degree from Columbia University in New York City. Though often addressed as "Doctor," Jones did not have an earned doctorate but honorary awards from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston and the University of Baltimore in Maryland.^[2]

Grambling career[edit]

After a short stint at the former Lamson College in Alexandria, Louisiana, Jones came to Grambling in 1926, when it was the two-year Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institution.^[2] There he taught chemistry, physics, and mathematics. Having been a player in the former Negro League, Jones launched the Grambling baseball team. He also was the dean of men and the college registrar. Under his tenure, Grambling grew from 120 students to a peak of 4,200, nearly all African Americans. The school grew from a few modest buildings to a multimillion-dollar physical plant under Jones's leadership.^[2] When Jones was only thirty, he became both the president of the school and the baseball coach as well.^[1] His actual total Grambling service, 1926 to 1977, exceeded fifty years.^[2]

Jones started the college marching band^[1] and even composed the Grambling Tigers alma mater, For seventeen years, Wilbert Ellis, a Ruston native and 1959 Grambling graduate, was Jones's assistant baseball coach. Between 1958 and 1967, Jones's teams rumbled through conference play, winning seven titles between 1958 and 1967 and gaining induction into the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame after leading his teams to national baseball tournaments in 1961, 1963, 1964, and 1967. He was national coach of the year in 1967.^[3]

In 1941, Jones hired the inexperienced Eddie Robinson as the football coach of the Grambling Tigers. Robinson amassed a still-standing Division I record for career wins—408—from 1941 tol 1997. Of Jones, Robinson said, "Boy, oh, boy, he was some kind of guy. There were many times I thought that if he hadn't come along to hire me, that I might have gotten caught on the streets in Baton Rouge. I thank God that Dr. Jones just grabbed me and took me. ... President Jones was my teacher, even when I did not realize it."^[3] The Grambling campus is now the home of the Eddie Robinson Museum.

Jones's last fifteen years as the Grambling president coincided with that of the Tech president F. Jay Taylor,^[4] who in 1969 presented Jones with an honorary doctorate.^[2] Other area college presidents during Jones's latter tenure were Arnold Kilpatrick of Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.^[5] and George T. Walker of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, then known as Northeast Louisiana University, in Monroe.^[6] Like Taylor, Walker, and Kilpatrick, Jones worked with governors and legislators to obtain vital funding for his institution.^[2]

Death and legacy[edit]

Jones died at the age of seventy-six in Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston. He had complications from gall bladder surgery.^[1] He was a deacon at the New Rocky Valley Baptist Church in Grambling. Jones was survived by two sons, Ralph Jones, Jr., and John Arthur Jones, both of Baltimore, Maryland, three grandsons, Ralph Eldridge Jones, Ellison Emerson Jones, and Warren Waldo Jones, and five sisters. The obituary does not indicate whether Jones was divorced or a widower; his wife, Mildred, is not listed as a surviving widow. Nor is there an indication of a burial site.^[2]

In 2006, Frances Swayzer Conley of Shreveport, an English professor at Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City, published the illustrated book Prez Lives! Remembering Grambling's Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones.^[7] Jones developed the slogan: "Grambling: Where Everybody is Somebody."^[2]

Black author James O. McHenry refers to Jones, accordingly:

Prez was one of the greatest men that I have ever met because he was right down here with you. He was a country boy himself, and he taught you everything. ... Prez knew where you came from and what you hadn't been exposed to ... He didn't impose upon you to do anything because he taught you what you were supposed to know. ... He would call us into meetings and talk to us like we were his children. He knew what his black people needed. ... He believed in taking you from where he found you and progressing from there. He would say "Don't tell me what you don't know. Just tell me that you want to learn." That's the kind of man Prez was. ....^[8]

In May 2011, the Grambling baseball stadium was named in Jones's honor. On July 3, 2011, Jones was posthumously inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in Lubbock, Lubbock]], Texas.^[9]

In addition to the baseball stadium, R.W.E. Jones Drive in Grambling is named in his honor.

References[edit]