Judge Sidney A. Jones Jr., 84, a retired Cook County Circuit Court judge, had been alderman of the 6th Ward and one of the foremost civil rights lawyers in the city. He served under the late Mayor Harold Washington in the 1980s as director of the Mayor’s License Commission.
A resident of the Lake Meadows neighborhood, he died at home Tuesday after a struggle with cancer.
“He worried as much about the troubled people in Bosnia, Somalia, the Middle East and Cambodia as about members of his own family,” his daughter, Roma Jones Stewart, said. “Mankind was his family.”
During his years as a lawyer, he is reported to have participated in and tried more civil rights cases than any other attorney in Chicago. These included represented African-Americans denied equal accommodation in hotels, restaurants, dining cars and other facilities.
He successfully defeated an attempt by Western Springs to condemn the lots that an African-American couple had bought there in hopes of building a home. The village said it wanted the lots for a park. The family subsequently built the home and moved in.
Judge Jones also won a case against the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Co., which had refused service in a dining room to James L. Stamp because of his race. An all-white jury in Louisville found in his client’s favor. He then pursued the case before the Interstate Commerce Commission and got a ruling prohibiting railroads from using partitions or curtains to separate dining car customers according to race.
Born in Sandersville, Ga., Judge Jones graduated from Altanta University in 1928. He applied to law school at Western Reserve University, but was rejected in a letter the family still owns in which the dean stated, “It is imposible for a Negro to succeed in the practice of the law.”
“The rest of his life was a refutation of that letter,” said his son, Cook County Circuit Judge Sidney A. Jones III.
He graduated from Northwestern University Law School near the top of his class.
In World War II, he was senior attorney for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hours Division.
In 1955, he became the first black to be elected alderman in the 6th Ward. A 1957 Tribune profile called him “an aggressive advocate of community improvement and conservation.”
He was chosen an associate judge of the Municipal Court in 1960 and quickly established a reputation as an independent thinker. He became an associate judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County in 1964, retiring in 1980.
Survivors, besides his daughter and son, include his wife, Fansayde; another daughter, Laurel J. Boyd; six grandchildren; and a step-grandchild.
Visitation will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday in the Unity Funeral Parlor, 4114 S. Michigan Ave.
Services for Judge Jones will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday in Coppin Memorial AME Church, 5627 S. Michigan Ave.
