David Paul Jones, Skokie’s first Black homeowner, dies at 93

David Paul Jones and his wife, Martha, were Skokie’s first black homeowners in 1961, and despite initial racial hostility toward them, Jones became active in the village’s civic life, serving for many years on its Human Relations Commission and its Fire and Police Commission.

“He was just the nicest man,” said Barbara Meyer, a retired Skokie attorney. “I knew him while he was chairman of the Fire and Police Commission, and he did an incredible job and cared about the community he lived in.”

Jones, 93, died of natural causes Sept. 30 at the Westminster Place Presbyterian assisted living community in Evanston, his daughter Becky Betts said. He had lived in Skokie from 1961 until 2019, when he moved to Evanston.

Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1932, Jones spent his early years in Nedrow, a suburb of Syracuse. At age 14, he moved alone to Chicago to live with relatives. He then moved with his relatives to a farm near the small town of Cassopolis, Michigan, in the southwest of the state, where he graduated from Cassopolis High School in 1950.

Jones studied for two years at the University of Illinois’ Navy Pier campus before transferring to the university’s Urbana-Champaign campus, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1955. He served 21 months on active duty in the Army in South Korea from 1955 to 1956, receiving a commission as a first lieutenant.

Returning home, Jones married in 1957 and began pursuing a master’s degree in labor and industrial relations at Loyola University Chicago, which he completed in 1960. His master’s thesis focused on Illinois’ temporary emergency unemployment insurance program.

Jones’ first local job, from 1957 to 1959, was as a research analyst in the Unemployment Compensation Division of the Illinois Department of Labor. He then worked for the city of Chicago in urban planning.

“He had an extremely inquisitive mind and was always the type of person who asked a little more and took full interest in the information he was given,” said his daughter Gail Jones Klopfer. “He wasn’t quick to judge, and I think that goes with being an analyst. He would try to find out all the information he could about a topic, and then he would get more excited about things when other people were interested as well.”

In 1961, Jones and his wife decided to move from the South Side to Skokie — for very practical reasons, Betts said.

“My mother worked for Stepan Chemical, which moved to Northfield, and my mother had been commuting for a while with a group of co-workers, all men. My father was not a big fan of that. He didn’t like that it was such a long commute for her and also that she had to commute with these men,” Betts said. “So they looked in northern suburbs like Highland Park, Evanston and Skokie. Evanston was more integrated, but they just couldn’t find a house they liked. So they found a new house in Skokie. They weren’t trying to make some kind of statement. For practical purposes, it was a much better commute for my mother, and (my father) could also easily take public transportation into the city.”

Skokie had black residents before 1920, according to the Skokie Heritage Museum’s review of census records. However, none had ever owned a house in the village. By the early 1960s, no federal and local fair housing laws had yet been passed.

When the Joneses tried to buy a house in Skokie, they encountered difficulties. They accepted help from a white couple who purchased a split-level apartment on Kildare Avenue on their behalf. This white couple, who had connected with the Joneses through the Evanston chapter of the NAACP, then immediately transferred the property to the Joneses.

The real estate agent who represented the builder, Joseph J. Hansen, placed an ad in a February 1961 issue of the Skokie Review newspaper, attempting to distance himself from the sale by insisting that he was selling the house to the white couple and not the Joneses.

David and Martha Jones were immediately welcomed by some members of the community. The Skokie Village Manager and Village Board of Trustees issued a statement in January 1961 that “the constitutional and civil rights of all citizens and property owners, old and new, will be protected with every resource at our disposal” and that “we are confident that all citizens of Skokie share our determination to maintain law and order.”

However, the couple’s new home was subject to numerous acts of vandalism. The Tribune wrote in May 1961 that the Joneses’ home had been subject to violence, prompting Skokie to place the house under 24-hour surveillance. After that guard was removed, the Tribune wrote, the home’s picture window was shattered by rocks thrown by vandals, who also scrawled on the window and front door: “Go to hell.”

At one point, Betts said, arsonists tried to set the house on fire and vandals poured white paint on the house. Some neighbors shouted racial epithets at Martha Jones, and the couple found razor blades hidden in a cake sent to the house under the guise of welcoming them. However, the racist actions towards the couple eventually subsided and Jones and his wife remained in their home for the next 58 years.

“From what my dad said, it was no big deal to find a house and buy it,” said another daughter, Paula Manchester. “It wasn’t until they started seeing the reactions and seeing other people trying to help them that they realized it was a big deal. For my dad, it was just about trying to achieve the American dream: getting married and buying a house.”

Betts said that as the years went by, his father saw racism as a less defining feature of his time in Skokie.

“If you talked to my dad, he would have a hard time talking about the negative aspects of moving into the community,” Betts said. “He would tell you about all the invitations they received, all the positive aspects of the community, all the people who were kind to them, including religious leaders of several faiths. »

The Skokie Heritage Museum, in collaboration with the Skokie Human Relations Commission and the Skokie Public Library, hosted an event in 2024 on the history of fair housing in the village. Museum director Emily England, who met Jones at the event, called him a “phenomenal human being.”

“He really made the integration of Skokie possible in a lot of ways,” England said. “He was very kind and full of humor, and had a strong strength of character.”

At the 2024 Fair Housing event, Jones called the crimes against him “a bit of a challenge when we first moved in and then for about four or five months.”

“People were putting liquid metal in the locks,” he said, which he was able to remove, according to a 2024 Tribune article. He also discussed the attempted arson.

Skokie Human Relations Commission member Sheila Crumrine, who attended the event, recalled Jones’ commitment to the community, his generosity of spirit and his family’s “strength capacity to become such a leader in the community.”

Jones later worked in sales for Xerox, then pursued a career as a stock broker, working for Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and JPMorganChase. He retired around age 80, Betts said.

Jones spent many years on the Skokie Fire and Police Commission Board of Directors and its Human Relations Commission. In 2018, Skokie recognized him for serving 50 years on the Fire and Police Commission Board.

Klopfer said his father’s experiences following the move informed his work on the Skokie controls.

“There’s always this underlying question of fairness: Is there fairness in hiring and firing?” she said. “That’s where the interest comes from, it’s just making sure there’s always someone there to see if things are fair.”

Jones was active at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, where he became friends with another parishioner, Edward Sips.

“The one thing I cherished about David was that he was thoughtful and listened to what others had to say,” Sips, 83, said. “He taught us all to spend more time listening than talking. »

Outside of work, Jones enjoyed spending time with his extended family.

Jones’ wife died in 2022. In addition to Betts, Klopfer and Manchester, he is survived by five grandchildren; a great-granddaughter; a brother, Robert; and two sisters, Mary Jones and Barbara Geiszler.

Bob Goldsborough is an independent journalist.