Jones and his family were avid readers of two Black newspapers, the Pittsburgh Courier and the Miami Times.
He grew up surrounded by frequent discussions on race, racial differences, and the accomplishments of notable Black figures.
Jones also recalls spending summers visiting Pennsylvania, where his father would fervently introduce him to all kinds of people as an attempt to educate him in the "ways of the world."
Afterwards he enrolled for the graduate clinical psychology program at Wayne University and completed his thesis on ethnocentrism within White individuals.
During his two years in the army, Jones was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and Bad Cannstatt, Germany.
Immediately after receiving his Ph.D., he chose to accept a Research Assistant Professor position at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
He stayed for a year and advises the master's theses of William Hayes, Moses Johnson, and Angela Owens.
Jones helped develop and teach courses in areas of gifted and retarded education, recruit faculty for the program, and form partnerships with California State University, Los Angeles.
After just two years, he was promoted to full professorship with tenure and was also appointed to Vice Chair for Staff Development.
Finally, he left UC Berkeley in 1991 and Jones ended his career at Hampton University as a department chair and Professor of Psychology.
[2] Jones's primary research interests were the education of exceptional children and the psychology of African Americans.
He was highly successful in receiving grants to support minority students and special education research.
Jones also contributed to the public sector by being part of President-elect Bill Clinton's Council of Advisors's Education Transition Team, and President Nixon's Task Force on Mental Health.
In mainstream psychology, studies often concluded that Black-White differences were due to deficiencies in Black people.
So, what happened, since the government was pouring tens of millions of dollars into studying the black child in relationship to the middle-class white child—there were hundreds, probably thousands, of research studies—they all concluded that on whatever dimension was studied, practically, the black child was deficient in some way.
Later editions of the book would shift from critiquing mainstream psychology to including more original theory and research.
In the third edition, published in 1991, a section called "Deconstruction" was devoted to critically evaluating the accuracy and validity of mainstream literature.
[8] On the contrary, a section titled "Reconstruction" was devoted to analyzing the strengths of Black people and maintaining psychological well-being while living in a racist society.