Portraits of John H. and Mary R. Jones, by Aaron E. Darling, c. 1865

Free blacks from the South, John H. Jones (c. 1816-79) and his wife, Mary Richardson Jones (1819-1910), moved to Chicago in 1845. A tailor by trade, John Jones became one of the nation's wealthiest African-Americans and a nationally known abolitionist. Mary Jones worked with her husband to make their home a haven for fugitive slaves and a meeting place for abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass and John Brown. She was also active in the women's suffrage movement.

 

Their greatest achievement came in 1865 with the repeal of the Illinois Black Laws. For seventeen years they had lobbied against these statutes, which prohibited African-Americans from settling in Illinois and from serving on juries and testifying in court against whites. These laws, John Jones argued, violated fundamental democratic principles that concerned whites as well as African-Americans: "It is not the complexion or shades of men we are discussing; it is the right of all…the interest of one, is the interest of all."

After the Civil War, John Jones was one of the first African Americans to win elected office in the North, serving as a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

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