Rufus E. Jones (August 21, 1940 – October 20, 2019)[1] was an American politician and businessman.
[2][3] He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and Michigan State University.
Jones succeeded his childhood friend Emmitt Ford in the Tennessee House of Representatives and served from 1981 to 1996.
[5] Jones was the Tennessean delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1996.
She was a member of the Memphis State Eight, the first group of African-American students to attend the University of Memphis, five years after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education.