Jerrauld Jones’ speech about the Confederate flag on the floor of the Virginia House of Delegates in January 1999 displayed an oratory so gut-wrenching, so authentic, that he swayed opposing delegates to his side.

Rare is the time when a state legislator — through the power of his own personal, painful narrative — changes the minds of colleagues.

Jones, given that platform on the House floor in January 1999 as he discussed the Confederate battle flag, displayed an oratory so gut- wrenching, so authentic, that he swayed opposing delegates to his side. There’s nothing I can compare it to in the General Assembly since that moment.

Jones, a 70-year-old Norfolk native and son of civil rights attorney Hilary H. Jones, died May 31.

  

I don’t mean to lessen his sterling lifetime of achievements — including being among the first Black students to integrate Ingleside Elementary School in 1961.

He later earned bachelor’s and law degrees. In addition to serving as a state delegate from 1988 to 2002 representing the 89th District anchored in his hometown, he later directed the state Department of Juvenile Justice. He then was appointed a juvenile and domestic relations court judge, and later a circuit court judge.

He retired from the latter post last year because of health problems.

That moment in 1999, though, was an inflection point in his career. People across the commonwealth unfamiliar with his background and determination were introduced to him in a dramatic way.

(Full disclosure: Jones’ wife, Lyn Simmons, and son, Jay Jones, and I have long attended the same Catholic church in Norfolk. Simmons is a juvenile and domestic relations district judge, and Jay Jones is a former delegate and current Democratic candidate for state attorney general.)

I was an editorial writer at the (Newport News) Daily Press in 1999. I remember seeing television accounts of Jerrauld Jones’ speech as he explained why Virginia shouldn’t give its imprimatur by placing the Confederate flag on state license plates.

I couldn’t find footage of Jones’ impassioned comments that day; a House of Delegates official told me video archives don’t go back to 1999. News articles can’t truly capture Jones’ gripping explanation of how — for African Americans — the flag represented fear, intimidation and white supremacy.

But those news stories will have to do:

The Sons of Confederate Veterans had wanted the flag symbol on a specialty license plate. Jones, a Norfolk Democrat and head of the legislative Black caucus, relayed his first memory of the flag to colleagues. When he was just six, returning with other Black children and their parents from a field trip, they saw the flag being waved in a field next to a burning cross at a Ku Klux Klan rally, The Washington Post reported.

“The fear in that bus was so great you could smell it,”

Jones said. “I saw the stark fear in my mother’s face as she looked out that window.… All we could do was hope and pray that we would not be molested because of that symbol of hate and violence.”

A year later, he and his brother attempted to enroll at Ingleside Elementary School.

“We not only were told, ‘Ni--er stay out, ni--er go home’ — that we would dare try to integrate their schools — but we were greeted with waving Confederate flags,” he said.

And later, he brought his point home: “And now, some want to put that symbol of pain on the cars of Virginia.”

The Post noted that when Jones rose to speak, many delegates were paying their usual scant attention to business. By the time Jones was halfway through his 20-minute teachable moment, though, “a respectful silence had settled over the room.”

The House approved by voice vote an amendment allowing the words “Sons of Confederate Veterans” on the plate, but not the logo. Jones later received hate mail, and the SCV went to federal court to restore the flag.

No matter: Jones’ courage, persuasiveness and representation of African Americans were on full display that day a little more than a quarter-century ago. That incident was a microcosm of his lifetime of leadership and service.