Clarence B. Jones Dies: Attorney Who Helped MLK Draft ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech & Focus Of Sundance-Winning Short Film Was 95

Clarence B. Jones, a key adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. who helped organize the March on Washington and assisted King in drafting the Civil Rights Movement leader’s “I Have a Dream” speech, has died. His family says the attorney and academic “passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, in Cupertino, California” on May 22. He was 95.

Jones is the focus of the short documentary The Baddest Speechwriter of Alldirected by two-time Oscar winner and NBA superstar Stephen Curry, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film is expected to premiere later this year on Netflix.

In a statement, Jones’ family said, “Dr. Jones stood at the center of the modern American civil rights movement. From 1960 until Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, he served as Dr. King’s personal attorney, draft speechwriter, advisor, and trusted friend. He helped draft the opening of the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, smuggled the pages of the ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ out of a Birmingham cell, was part of the legal team in the landmark Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan, and contributed to Dr. King’s ‘Beyond Vietnam’ address at Riverside Church in 1967. Later that year, Dr. Jones joined the Wall Street investment banking firm Carter, Berlind & Weill, alongside Sanford I. Weill and Arthur Levitt Jr., who became lifelong friends, and was named the first African American allied member of the New York Stock Exchange.”

In 2024, Pres. Joe Biden awarded Jones the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Jones taught at Stanford and the University of San Francisco, where he co-founded the university’s Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice. In 2022, the institute honored Jones at a ceremony attended by singer Joan Baez, attorney and prominent social justice activist Bryan Stevenson, among others.

“Our father lived a life of conscience,” Jones’ family wrote in their statement. “He believed, until his final days, that an idea whose time has come 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.”

Jones is survived by his children, Christine T. Jones-Tucker (Edward), Alexia N. Jones, Clarence B. Jones Jr. (Kristen), Dana N.G. Jones, and Felicia E. Jones, and his longtime partner, Lin Walters.

As Deadline reported in February, it was Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr who introduced Jones to Steph Curry, the team’s All-Star guard.

“[Jones] came and spoke to our team years ago,” Kerr told us. “He’s from San Francisco and we invited him to come speak to the group and that was the impetus behind Steph’s idea to do the documentary.”

Proudfoot, whose credits include the Oscar-winning The Queen of Basketball (on which Curry served as an executive producer) and Oscar winner The Last Repair Shopprovided a statement to Deadline exclusively.

“I know Stephen and I and the whole filmmaking team are heartbroken for Clarence’s family at the devastating loss of a great man,” Proudfoot wrote. “We are also deeply grateful to have had the chance to preserve his incredible story. Clarence B. Jones started his career as an IP copyright lawyer in Hollywood in the late 1950s. At the time, he lived in a beautiful home in Altadena which miraculously survived the fires last year. He was called to a life of purpose by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself and bravely gave up his lucrative job in Hollywood to devote his life to racial justice.”

Proudfoot added, “Let his story serve as an example of the power we all have to make sacrifices and live lives of purpose.”

The family says a memorial and a public celebration of Jones’ life will be held on dates to be announced.