Van Jones
Anthony Kapel Jones is an American news commentator, author, and lawyer. Jones served as President Barack Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs in 2009. He is the author of The Green Collar Economy, Rebuild the Dream, and Beyond the Messy Truth; all three books rank as New York Times bestsellers.
About Van Jones in brief
Anthony Kapel Jones is an American news commentator, author, and lawyer. He founded or co-founded several non-profit organizations, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and the Dream Corps. Jones served as President Barack Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs in 2009. He is the author of The Green Collar Economy, Rebuild the Dream, and Beyond the Messy Truth; all three books rank as New York Times bestsellers. Jones is the co-founder of Magic Labs Media LLC, a producer of the WEBBY Award-winningMessy Truth digital series and Emmy Award-winner The Messytruth VR Experience with Van Jones. He was also a longtime colleague of, and advisor to, musician Prince. Jones led the fight to pass the bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation known as the First Step Act, and is currently CEO of the REFORM Alliance, an initiative founded by Jay-Z and Meek Mill to transform the criminal justice system. He has appeared on CNN shows including Crossfire, The MessY Truth, The Van Jones Show and The Redemption Project with VanJones. Jones has also appeared on “Larry King Live” with Larry King, and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” with Conan O’Brien, and on “This is Life With Kelly Wallace” with Kelly Wallace, “The Kelly Wallace Show” and “This Is Life with Kevin Spacey” Jones is a member of the National Organization for Black Lawyers, a civil rights group that promotes civil rights and human rights in the workplace and in the community.
He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which advocates for racial and economic justice in the U.S. and around the world. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut with his wife and two children. He and his wife have a son, a daughter, and a son-in-law, and two step-daughters, all of whom live in New York City and Los Angeles. He currently lives in San Francisco with his husband and two daughters, and has a daughter and a step-son in Los Angeles, California. He recently moved from San Francisco to New York to be closer to his wife, who is also a lawyer, and his daughter, who lives in California with her husband and their two children in New Jersey. His wife and three children have three children; he has one step-daughter and one son-to-be, and he has three step-great-grandchildren. Jones was born in Jackson, Tennessee, on September 20, 1968, to high school teacher Loretta Jean and middle school principal Willie Anthony Jones. As a child, he matched his Star Wars action figures with Kennedy-era political figures; Luke Skywalker was John, Han Solo was Robert, and Lando Calrissian was Martin Luther King Jr. He earned his Bachelor of Science in communication and political science from the University of Tennessee at Martin. He later worked as an intern at The Jackson Sun, the Shreveport Times, and the Associated Press.
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This page is based on the article Van Jones published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 09, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
