[citation needed] Prior to joining FPWA, Jones Austin served as Senior Vice President of the United Way of New York City; the City of New York’s first Family Services Coordinator; Deputy Commissioner for the NYC Administration for Children’s Services; Civil Rights Deputy Bureau Chief for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer; and Vice President for LearnNow/Edison Schools, Inc.[citation needed] Jones Austin chairs the NYC Racial Justice Commission.
Jones Austin co-hosts WBLS’ “Open Line”, guest hosts weekly the nationally syndicated radio program, “Keep’n It Real with Rev.
Jones Austin is the author of Consider It Pure Joy, the account of her year-long battle with a sudden, life threatening illness.
[citation needed] She is the editor of God in The Ghetto: A Prophetic Word Revisited, the re-release of her father, William Augustus Jones Jr.’s work deconstructing the “system” of racism, capitalism and militarism.
[7] In 2016, the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University gave Jones Austin the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award, for her ongoing work in social advocacy.