Laurence C. Jones

Laurence C. Jones
Laurence C. Jones, date unknown
Born	November 21, 1882 St. Joseph, Missouri
Died	July 13, 1975 (1975-07-14) (aged 92) Jackson, Mississippi
Nationality	American
Occupation	Educator
Known for	Founder of Piney Woods Country Life School

Laurence Clifton Jones (November 21, 1882 – July 13, 1975), was the founder and long-time president of Piney Woods Country Life School in Rankin County, Mississippi. A noted educational innovator, Jones spent his adult life supporting the educational advancement of rural African-American students in the segregated South.

Jones came from a family of educators, with an uncle who founded the Woodstock Manual Labor Institute in Michigan in 1846. Before he was married to her, his future wife was the founder of the Grace M. Allen Industrial School for African American students in Burlington, Iowa.

After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1908 Jones turned down an offer to teach at the prestigious Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, instead opting to teach at the small Utica Institute, a school for African American children located in Utica, Mississippi. While he was there he was recruited by the congregation of St. John's Baptist Church of D'Lo, Mississippi to found a school. The efforts of the church to start a school for their children had been initially checked by white residents of the area.

It was when he learned about rural Rankin County, Mississippi, which had an eighty percent illiteracy rate, that Jones identified his personal mission. In 1909 Jones agreed to teach a poor youngster to read, and soon found himself teaching a small group of students. He started the Piney Woods School with just $2 and three students. A local freed slave named Ed Taylor gave Jones 40 acres (160,000 m²) and an abandoned sheep shed to start his Piney Woods School.

After getting married to Grace Morris Allen in 1912, Jones built a larger school to accommodate the large number of students interested in attending. A local white sawmill owner donated the wood for that building, and dozens of other donations started coming in, including cattle for milk, a large amount of land near the school, and cash. Throughout the rest of her life, Grace was pivotal in helping her husband fund-raise for the school, and by teaching courses in domestic science.