Charles Jones
If the sign of life is in your face
He who responds to it
Will feel secure and fit
As when, in a friendly place,
Sure of hearty care,
A traveler gladly waits.
Tao teh Ching 35, translated by Witter Bynner
Charles Wesley Jones II was known as Charlie to his friends, and he had no enemies. Everyone
basked in the glow of his easy good cheer and friendliness, and laughed at his unexpected quips.
Charlie would say he could remember his birthday because it was the title of a poem by W. H.
Auden. At eighteen, he enlisted in the Army, working as a cryptographer stationed in Germany,
and upon discharge, he took the opportunity to travel through Europe. Back home, he wrote and
directed plays far off Broadway, participated actively in the civil rights and peace movements,
taught as a substitute in Baltimore County public schools, and worked for the People’s
Bicentennial Commission, teaching Americans that they could draw inspiration from their own
revolutionary traditions.
An autodidact and independent scholar, Charlie never graduated high school but taught college
and set up a degree program at the Lorton Reformatory, Washington, D.C.’s prison complex.
(His best student was a bank robber who taught him that robbing banks wasn’t all glamor and
glitz; it involved a lot of careful observation and planning.) He wrote public education spots for
radio and sprawling manuscripts on constitutions and corporations, part of his Multivolume
History of Everything. He managed the large cooperative housing complex in which he lived.
And he served on the boards of two community land trusts, helping to secure permanently
affordable housing for low- and moderate-income people.
All his life, Charlie spoke, wrote, and worked to promote knowledge, democracy, and justice.
Those who would like to honor his legacy can best do so by furthering efforts to bring a new,
more just world into being.