A familiar name takes aim at attorney general gig
Jay Jones is the grandson of Hilary H. Jones Jr., a local stalwart of the civil rights era and of the Norfolk School Board
With the emergence of Norfolk Del. Jay Jones as a potential statewide candidate next year — he would be attorney general, if the stars align — an old Virginia habit of thinking kicked in, that when it comes to apples falling from trees, the tree matters.
Jones has “winning ways” regardless and that matters, too.
Go right down the list. Intelligence. Bearing. Confidence.
And a smile that is oh-sowinning. Jones brings J. Pierpont Finch into focus (from “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”) as he sings,
“You have the cool, clear, eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth.”
Only he’s singing to himself in a mirror.
Then there’s the pedigree.
His lineage. In Virginia, families count for something. “Jay was born into this. He was running when he was 10,” one of his House colleagues said.
That happens when you grow up surrounded by Virginia politics. Such environmental benefits, while not strictly necessary, hardly hurt.
At a minimum, you get a head start. If everyone in the family bakes bread or lays bricks for a living, odds are that you may pick up some specific skills at a relatively early age.
That’s Jones. He’s going after statewide office at a “relatively early age,” but he’s no neophyte. Not even close.
“Jay doesn’t do anything by accident,” someone said, and I got no disagreement talking to his former law school classmates. Jones seems to instinctively know that there are friendships born of affection and friendships found in utility.
Such relationships are not mutually exclusive.
They frequently overlap. But an inherently political mindset — the kind that political families inculcate — always knows which is which and deliberates on it constantly.
This is the stuff of the political arts — the gift of pulling people toward you — and we need more of it, not less. It can’t all be about anger.
What about family? Raise the subject of Jones and the reply turns to respected judges for parents and a vaunted member of the Virginia Board of Education for a grandfather.
The grandfather — Hilary H. Jones Jr., local stalwart of the civil rights era — became the first black member of the Norfolk School Board. He helped bridge differences and did so, by all accounts, with constructive consequence.
It was noticed. In 1969,
Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. made Jones the first black member of the Virginia Board of Education. Jones replaced former Gov. Colgate Darden and no one missed the significance.
Some calculation entered, no doubt. Though a floor captain of Massive Resistance in the Virginia Senate, Godwin had won black support for his 1965 gubernatorial bid. So much support that the Klan got out again and pilloried Godwin in the early stages in his administration.
School segregation, from today’s perspective, seems like a perfectly obvious thing to stop doing. But, back then, it had broad support in the white
Virginia electorate and prominent proponents eager to see it endure.
But segregation, seldom simple and never clear-cut, also proved an intense embarrassment to old-guard Virginia (please, they said, don’t lump us in with Mississippi) and the path forward often seemed near impossible.
Or, it seemed impossible — failing the participation, from within the black community, of good hearts, forbearance and trust — even when the latter was little justified.
Hilary H. Jones provided all that and when he exited this world (too early, at age 52), the expressions of gratitude for his contributions, for his judgment, grace and good humor — to helping Virginia steer clear of all that awful — ran broad and sincere.
No surprise, then, when Jerrauld Jones (Jay Jones’ father) entered the House of Delegates in 1988, memories clicked and hearts were lifted. Here, again, was hope personified. We can get some things done. We can move ahead.
It did work out that way. Jerrauld Jones now occupies a circuit court seat, while Lyn Simmons (Jay Jones’ mother) is a Norfolk juvenile-justice judge and former prosecutor.
“Jay is a rising star in statewide politics and is well prepared for this moment,” former Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim says.
Or, to invoke Broadway again and “1776,” recall the words sung by Richard Henry Lee to John Adams:
“I’ll admit that God in heaven is everybody’s God! But I tell you, John, with pride, God leans a little on the side of the Lee’s! The Lee’s of old Virginia!”
Substitute “Jones’s” for
“Lee’s” and you may more fully appreciate that Virginia remains Virginia, and how far we have come, thank goodness.
After writing editorials for The Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot in the 1980s, Gordon C. Morse wrote speeches for Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, then spent nearly three decades working on behalf of corporate and philanthropic organizations, including PepsiCo, CSX, Tribune Co. and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Dominion Energy. His email address is gordonmorse@msn.com.