The honors cascade upon Elaine R. Jones, woman of extraordinary accomplishment, like an avalanche schussing down a high mountain slope. But, albeit the honors, awards, compliments from prominent organizations, institutions and civic groups, Elaine Jones remains the same: An ebullient personality handling with aplomb a whirlwind schedule – while holding fast to and holding up the banner of the struggle for freedom.

Wednesday, Jones, the former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), received yet another award: the George Bundy Smith Pioneer Award of the New York State Bar Association. The award was given by the bar’s Commercial and Federal Litigation Section during a reception at Lincoln Center, in Manhattan.

In introducing Jones, Bernice Lieber, president of the state bar association, and a partner at Arent Fox LLP, in New York City, said Jones’ career exemplified the “commitment to legal excellence and sustained public service” that the award was intended to bring to public notice.

There was a special poignancy to the moment, and not only because George Bundy Smith, whose distinguished legal career included service as an Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals for 14 years, was there and spoke briefly but movingly of his admiration for Jones.

The connection between the two goes deeper. George Bundy Smith, now a partner at Chadbourne & Park LLP in New York, began his career as an LDF attorney in 1961. He was hired by Jack Greenberg, who had just succeeded Thurgood Marshall as LDF President and Director-Counsel.

A decade later, Greenberg would hire a newly-minted University of Virginia Law School graduate: Elaine R. Jones.

Typically, Jones brushed past her own achievements in her acceptance speech in favor of a discourse that was part laser-like dissection of some of the nation’s current social problems, part pitch for greater support of LDF, and part revival-meeting call for her audience to continue the struggle for equality.

“Anything I have accomplished,” she said, with her usual vibrant force, “I have accomplished with the help and support of others,” adding after a moment that, albeit all the progress that can be justly celebrated today, it is “not enough.”

For example, referring to the composition of the federal courts, Jones was blunt.

“I don’t think there is a progressive side anymore. There’s no Left there,” she said. “There’s too much sameness there, and I’m going to do all I can as one person to change that. I’m putting you on notice,” she emphasized, as the gathering laughed in appreciation.

It was clear long before the speech’s last words that Jones’ credo remains what it has always been: “There is much work yet to be done, and the work goes on.”

Jones’ audience included a healthy contingent of friend and former colleagues from LDF. They included two former LDF Presidents and Directors-Counsel, Jack Greenberg and Ted Shaw, both now professors at Columbia Law School,  Ted Wells, co-chair of the LDF Board and partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Garrison & Wharton, Toni Fay, a former executive at Time Warner, Nannette Gibson, a senior member of the Board, Jacqueline Berrien, Associate Director-Counsel, and Board member Clifford Case III and his wife, Karen Dubno.

Lee A. Daniels is Editor-in-Chief of TheDefendersOnline and Director of Communications for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

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