LeAlan Jones
Encyclopedia
LeAlan Marvin Jones is an American
journalist
and the Green Party
's 2010 nominee for United States Senate
from Illinois
. Jones lives in Chicago
's Auburn/Gresham Community.
Jones' radio documentaries
have received critical acclaim and numerous awards. Had he been elected, Jones would have been the fourth African-American to occupy the Senate seat held by Roland Burris
, Carol Moseley-Braun and Barack Obama
.
of Chicago
, a block from the Ida B. Wells
housing project. He was raised by his grandparents, Gus and June Jones, in the same house his family had lived in since the 1930s. He was a junior spokesperson for the No Dope Express Foundation, a youth education and anti-drug organization.
At the age of 13, Jones and his friend Lloyd Newman created a radio documentary
for NPR
titled Ghetto Life 101
. Jones was contacted by David Isay, who was producing a piece on poverty for Chicago Public Radio station WBEZ. The documentary illustrated life in the South Side of Chicago in 1993. The recordings made by the duo centered around interviews with the boys' families, friends, and members of the community. The broadcast was well received, and praised for its raw portrayal of life in the projects
in Chicago. It won several awards, including the Sigma Delta Chi Award
, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
's Awards for Excellence in Documentary Radio and Special Achievement in Radio Programming.
Jones and Newman made a second documentary in 1994, The 14 Stories of Eric Morse, which explored the backgrounds of the people involved with Eric Morse, a five-year-old boy who was tragically thrown from a fourteenth-story window in the Chicago projects by two older boys. The documentary premiered on NPR's All Things Considered
in 1996. It won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
and a Peabody Award
.
The two documentaries and further footage from when Jones and Newman were nearing high school graduation were condensed into a book published in 1997 titled Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago.
Jones graduated from Chicago's Dr. Martin Luther King High School in 1997. He studied criminology at Florida State University
where he became a member of Kappa Alpha Psi in the Spring of 1998 before transferring to Barat College
in Lake Forest in sping of 2001 x He received a B.A.
in Interdisciplinary Studies in Social Science.
scandal, Jones made the decision to run for United States Senate
. In 2009, he announced his candidacy in the 2010 election
for the seat currently held by Roland Burris
. Burris, who was appointed by Governor
Blagojevich to fill the seat vacated by Barack Obama
following Obama's election
as President of the United States
, chose not to seek reelection.
Jones ran unopposed in the Green Party primary and gained the nomination. He ran against Republican
Mark Kirk
, Democrat
Alexi Giannoulias
and Libertarian
Mike Labno in the general election scheduled for November 2010.
An early May poll saw Jones taking 5% of the vote. Following the controversy over Mark Kirk embellishing his military record, Jones saw a spike in his poll numbers. A June survey made by Public Policy Polling
saw Jones picking up 14% of the vote behind Mark Kirk's 30% and Alexi Giannoulias with 31%.
, a ban on land mine
s and complete nuclear disarmament
. He supports troop withdrawal from, and ending the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
He has been critical of credit default swap
s, derivatives trading
and the financial industry
as a whole, saying "a bunch of guys on Wall Street have done more to devastate the white community than any black man ever could." He is in favor of the decriminalization and taxation of marijuana
and the creation of cooperative
s and credit union
s as measures to bolster the economy.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and the Green Party
Illinois Green Party
The Illinois Green Party is a statewide political party in Illinois.The party is affiliated with the Green Party of the United States. Its stated mission and purpose are to advance the Ten Key Values of the Green Party in Illinois through political means and to support individual members and the...
's 2010 nominee for United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
from Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Jones lives in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
's Auburn/Gresham Community.
Jones' radio documentaries
Radio documentary
A radio documentary or feature is a purely acoustic performance devoted to covering a particular topic in some depth, usually with a mixture of commentary and sound pictures. It is broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD...
have received critical acclaim and numerous awards. Had he been elected, Jones would have been the fourth African-American to occupy the Senate seat held by Roland Burris
Roland Burris
Roland Wallace Burris is a former United States Senator from the state of Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party....
, Carol Moseley-Braun and Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
.
Early life
Jones grew up on the South SideSouth Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, a block from the Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an African American journalist, newspaper editor and, with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett, an early leader in the civil rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who...
housing project. He was raised by his grandparents, Gus and June Jones, in the same house his family had lived in since the 1930s. He was a junior spokesperson for the No Dope Express Foundation, a youth education and anti-drug organization.
At the age of 13, Jones and his friend Lloyd Newman created a radio documentary
Radio documentary
A radio documentary or feature is a purely acoustic performance devoted to covering a particular topic in some depth, usually with a mixture of commentary and sound pictures. It is broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD...
for NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
titled Ghetto Life 101
Ghetto Life 101
Ghetto Life 101 is a 30 minute radio broadcast documentary exploring the lives of residents of the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. The documentary was created by teenagers LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman and produced by David Isay for National Public Radio...
. Jones was contacted by David Isay, who was producing a piece on poverty for Chicago Public Radio station WBEZ. The documentary illustrated life in the South Side of Chicago in 1993. The recordings made by the duo centered around interviews with the boys' families, friends, and members of the community. The broadcast was well received, and praised for its raw portrayal of life in the projects
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
in Chicago. It won several awards, including the Sigma Delta Chi Award
Sigma Delta Chi Award
The Sigma Delta Chi Awards are presented annually by the Society of Professional Journalists for excellence in journalism.- History :The Awards, according to the SPJ, did not begin in 1932 when the society chose six individuals for their contributions to journalism. In 1939 the awards program began...
, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a non-profit corporation created by an act of the United States Congress, funded by the United States’ federal government to promote public broadcasting...
's Awards for Excellence in Documentary Radio and Special Achievement in Radio Programming.
Jones and Newman made a second documentary in 1994, The 14 Stories of Eric Morse, which explored the backgrounds of the people involved with Eric Morse, a five-year-old boy who was tragically thrown from a fourteenth-story window in the Chicago projects by two older boys. The documentary premiered on NPR's All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
in 1996. It won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism is journalisms award named after Robert F. Kennedy and awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The annual awards are issued in several categories and were established in December 1968 by a group of reporters who...
and a Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
.
The two documentaries and further footage from when Jones and Newman were nearing high school graduation were condensed into a book published in 1997 titled Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago.
Jones graduated from Chicago's Dr. Martin Luther King High School in 1997. He studied criminology at Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
where he became a member of Kappa Alpha Psi in the Spring of 1998 before transferring to Barat College
Barat College
Barat College of the Sacred Heart was a small Catholic college located in Lake Forest, Illinois, 30 miles north of Chicago. The college was named after Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart...
in Lake Forest in sping of 2001 x He received a B.A.
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in Interdisciplinary Studies in Social Science.
2010 U.S. Senate campaign
At the height of the Rod BlagojevichRod Blagojevich
Rod R. Blagojevich is an American politician who served as the 40th Governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009. A Democrat, Blagojevich was a State Representative before being elected to the United States House of Representatives representing parts of Chicago...
scandal, Jones made the decision to run for United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
. In 2009, he announced his candidacy in the 2010 election
United States Senate elections in Illinois, 2010
The 2010 United States Senate elections in Illinois took place on November 2, 2010. There were 2 ballot items for the same seat: a routine one, to fill the Class 3 seat beginning with the 112th United States Congress beginning on January 3, 2011, and a special item, to fill that seat for the final...
for the seat currently held by Roland Burris
Roland Burris
Roland Wallace Burris is a former United States Senator from the state of Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party....
. Burris, who was appointed by Governor
Governor of Illinois
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
Blagojevich to fill the seat vacated by Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
following Obama's election
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
as President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, chose not to seek reelection.
Jones ran unopposed in the Green Party primary and gained the nomination. He ran against Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Mark Kirk
Mark Kirk
Mark Steven Kirk is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, Kirk was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois's 10th congressional district....
, Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Alexi Giannoulias
Alexi Giannoulias
Alexander "Alexi" Giannoulias is an American politician who served as Illinois Treasurer from 2007 to 2011. A Democrat, Giannoulias defeated Republican candidate State Senator Christine Radogno in November 2006 with 54 percent of the vote, becoming the first Democrat to hold the office in 12...
and Libertarian
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
Mike Labno in the general election scheduled for November 2010.
An early May poll saw Jones taking 5% of the vote. Following the controversy over Mark Kirk embellishing his military record, Jones saw a spike in his poll numbers. A June survey made by Public Policy Polling
Public Policy Polling
Public Policy Polling is an American Democratic Party-affiliated polling firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina. PPP was founded in 2001 by businessman and Democratic pollster Dean Debnam, the firm's current president and chief executive officer...
saw Jones picking up 14% of the vote behind Mark Kirk's 30% and Alexi Giannoulias with 31%.
Political views
Jones has called for the immediate ratification of UNICEF's Convention on the Rights of the ChildConvention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty setting out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children...
, a ban on land mine
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
s and complete nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....
. He supports troop withdrawal from, and ending the wars in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
and Iraq.
He has been critical of credit default swap
Credit default swap
A credit default swap is similar to a traditional insurance policy, in as much as it obliges the seller of the CDS to compensate the buyer in the event of loan default...
s, derivatives trading
Derivative (finance)
A derivative instrument is a contract between two parties that specifies conditions—in particular, dates and the resulting values of the underlying variables—under which payments, or payoffs, are to be made between the parties.Under U.S...
and the financial industry
Financial services
Financial services refer to services provided by the finance industry. The finance industry encompasses a broad range of organizations that deal with the management of money. Among these organizations are credit unions, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, consumer finance companies,...
as a whole, saying "a bunch of guys on Wall Street have done more to devastate the white community than any black man ever could." He is in favor of the decriminalization and taxation of marijuana
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
and the creation of cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
s and credit union
Credit union
A credit union is a cooperative financial institution that is owned and controlled by its members and operated for the purpose of promoting thrift, providing credit at competitive rates, and providing other financial services to its members...
s as measures to bolster the economy.
External links
- LeAlan Jones for U.S. Senate official campaign site
- Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
- An interview with the authors of "Our America" on Charlie RoseCharlie Rose (talk show)Charlie Rose is an American television interview show, with Charlie Rose as executive producer, executive editor, and host. The show is syndicated...
(1997) - Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse Radio documentary at Sound Portraits