Mary Jane Richardson Jones

Biography

Mary Jane Richardson Jones (c. 1819 – December 26, 1909) was an American abolitionist, philanthropist, and suffragist. Born in Tennessee to parents who were free African-Americans, Jones and her family moved to Illinois. With her husband, John, she was a leading African-American figure in the early history of Chicago. The Jones household was a stop on the Underground Railroad and a center of abolitionist activity in the pre-Civil War era, helping hundreds of fugitive slaves flee slavery. After her husband's death in 1879, Jones continued to support African-American civil rights and advancement in Chicago, and became a suffragist. Jones was active in the women's club movement and mentored a new generation of younger black leaders, such as Fannie Barrier Williams and Ida B. Wells. Historian Wanda A. Hendricks has described her as a wealthy "aristocratic matriarch, presiding over the [city's] black elite for two decades."

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