Rep. French Hill
U.S. Rep. French Hill (R-AR) is seeking to initiate a federal study on preserving the home of Scipio Africanus Jones, a prominent African American civil rights attorney and activist from Arkansas.
“Scipio Jones is one of the most important figures in American civil rights history, and a proud Arkansas native,” Rep. Hill said. “While I’m grateful to the City of Little Rock for helping to save this landmark, I’m concerned that the Scipio Jones property continues to be vacant and to deteriorate, and I’m proud to lead the effort to restore it in a way that honors this great Arkansan’s legacy.”
The congressman on June 4 sponsored the Scipio Jones House Assessment Act, H.R. 9148, which would require the U.S. Department of the Interior to conduct a special resource study of the Scipio Jones House with a report to Congress three years after the bill’s enactment.
The study would lay the groundwork for preserving the house and potentially bring it into the National Park System, according to a bill summary provided by Rep. Hill’s office.
Specifically, H.R. 9148 would require the evaluation of the national significance of the study area, the suitability and feasibility of designating the study area as a unit of the National Historic Landmark and affiliated area of the National Park System, and the feasibility of making the home an extension of the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
Alternatives for preservation and protection of the study area, as well as cost estimates for any federal acquisition, development, interpretation, operation, and maintenance associated with the alternatives, also would be evaluated, the summary says.
Jones, born in 1863 to an enslaved person, attended Walden Seminary (now Philander Smith University) and then attended Bethel Institute (now Shorter College), earning a bachelor’s degree in 1885. He passed the bar and was admitted to practice before both the Supreme Court of Arkansas in 1900 and the U.S. Supreme Court in 1905.
He achieved a landmark civil rights victory in the 1923 case Moore v. Dempsey in which he defended the 12 accused black men who had been charged with murder and condemned by all-white juries after the massacre of black Americans in Elaine, Ark., in 1919.
With his clients facing execution, Jones fought their convictions in both state and federal courts. An appeal was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the accused had been denied due process of law.
The Supreme Court agreed and overturned the convictions, a landmark ruling that allows federal courts to hear and examine evidence in state criminal cases to ensure that the defendants’ constitutional due process rights are protected.
“He saved 12 men from death row, took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, won, and changed constitutional law for every American who has ever stood accused,” said Rep. Hill.
The bill is under consideration by the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee.