Harry H. Jones was a true Renaissance man. Born Nov. 7, 1887 in Wheeling, WV, he was a graduate of (segregated) Lincoln School and Oberlin College in 1914. He became a teacher of history and civics at Lincoln School, then earned his law degree at Howard University in 1929. He married Edith Walker, who preceded him in death in 1968. Professor Jones was editor of an African American newspaper known as “The Advocate. He resigned in Sept. 1923. "While on the staff," The Pittsburgh Courier reported, "he made the paper felt with his strong dissertations regarding race questions in the community.” He also wrote for the Wheeling Majority, The Pittsburgh Courier, and The Crisis. Professor Jones served as president of the Wheeling branch of the NAACP, in which capacity, in 1919, he praised WV Gov. Cornwell for his stand against a “double lynching” in Huntington and in support of the federal anti-lynching Curtis and Dyer bills (not passed). Mr. Jones was the WV field supervisor of “Civilian Defense for Negro Activities” and held the federal position of Clerk, Office of Recorders of Deeds, Wheeling. He was a member of the Wheeling Zoning Commission and the West Virginia Human Rights Commission. In 1936 he delivered the "20th Man speech" —an extraordinarily important document about black life in Wheeling in the Jim Crow, segregated era. See: https://www.ohiocountylibrary.org/history/wheelings-20th-man/7111.
See also: http://www.archivingwheeling.org/blog/wheelings-20th-man-250-years-of-race-relations-in-the-northernmost-southern-city-of-the-southernmost-northern-state
Attorney Jones was appointed Law Librarian of Ohio County in 1960 until retirement in 1971. He died in 1974 at the age of 87, and is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Wheeling.