Alberta O. Jones
Age 34
A fearless and trailblazing Black woman prosecutor
Louisville, Kentucky
August 5, 1965
"The years, you get so you adjust. But you never forget."
Flora Shanklin
Sister of Jones
START
FS: Mama said she did too good a job raising her. And when she sent her off to college, she told her, “I want you to get your education. But promise me one thing. Do not be an educated fool.” She said, “Never forget where you came from. You’ve been fortunate and lucky enough that you were able to get yours. Somebody else out there wasn’t.”
She said, so don’t be like people she knew. She said don’t be like them because they have a little education they come back with their nose all turned up, snobbing everybody. She said, “I didn’t raise you that way.”
So, they going up Broadway one day. And these guys was on the garbage truck, and they hollar, “Hey Ms. Jones!” And she hollered “Hey!”
She turned around to Mama, and said “You’re the one who told me not to get…”
Mama said, “I know, but Alberta, do you have to be hollering out the car at the garbage man?”
She said, “Yes, he might be one of my clients one day.” She said, “You told me not to ignore or look down on nobody.”
She said, “Yeah, I did. I guess I did too good a job” And Mama couldn’t say another word.
The years, you get so you adjust. But you never forget. And like I tell them, the pain never, never, ever goes away. Alberta went out of the house, a healthy woman, and got abducted and beat to death, and thrown away like she was a bag of trash. And nobody has ever been tried for it.
END
Photo by Jonathan Cherry
Alberta O. Jones was a trailblazing Black lawyer and attorney. Born in Kentucky, she graduated at the top of her class from the newly integrated University of Louisville and then Howard University School of Law. In 1959, Jones became one of the first Black women admitted to the Kentucky bar, and in 1965 became Louisville’s first woman prosecutor. She also helped to educate and register Black voters, and she negotiated a contract for boxer Cassius Clay, her neighbor, who would become Muhammad Ali.
A profile at the time in the Louisville Courier-Journal was headlined, “Hard to Keep Up With, That’s Alberta Jones.” “When I got back home, a lot of people said, ‘You’ve got two strikes against you. You’re a woman, and you’re a Negro,’” she told the paper. “Yeah, but I’ve got one strike left, and I’ve seen people hit home runs when all they’ve got left is one strike.”
The night she disappeared, August 4, 1965, Jones had received a call from a friend, according to Flora Shanklin, Jones’ sister. Although it was late, Jones agreed to meet her friend. Shanklin said their mother offered to go too, but Jones decided to go alone. She never came home.
In the morning, Shanklin said, the family reported her sister missing. Jones was found that day by two boys, who saw her body floating in the Ohio River. The car Jones had been driving was found a day later, several blocks away.
Initial Investigation
In the initial investigation, Louisville police discovered bloodstains, fingerprints and pieces of brick in the car Jones had been driving, which was parked near the section of the river where her body was recovered. Investigators believed Jones had been hit in the head with a brick, thrown off the nearby Sherman Minton Bridge and drowned due to her injuries. An autopsy confirmed the manner of death.
Investigators interviewed nearly 400 people, including the friend who Jones went to meet that night. She said Jones had left her home around 2 a.m., according to a newspaper account at the time. She was never named as a suspect in the case. Two witnesses reported having seen two men force a screaming woman into a car that matched the description of the one Jones had been driving that night.
Many theories arose surrounding the motive for Jones’ murder. She might have been targeted for her work as a prosecutor or for registering Black people to vote. Others speculated she had been the victim of a robbery or targeted by the Nation of Islam for her work aiding Clay.
Three years after Jones’ death, her purse was found hanging off the Sherman Minton Bridge in near-perfect condition, containing her wallet and ID but no cash, a partial dental plate and several key rings. Investigators were unable to develop any leads, and her case went cold.
Till Act Status
In 2008, the FBI discovered a match for a fingerprint found inside Jones’ car, prompting the Louisville police to take another look at the case. It lead them to a Black man who had been 17 years old at the time of the murder, and was still alive and living in California. During a polygraph examination, it was noted that the man denied any involvement in the murder, but that “deception was indicated” when he was asked about the circumstances surrounding Jones’ death. But the man maintained that he had no involvement in Jones’ death and was never named as suspect.
In a letter to the police chief, Kentucky’s commonwealth attorney, R. David Stengel, said that most of the physical evidence collected from the 1965 investigation had been lost and that witnesses interviewed then had either died or could not be located. The polygraph interview also couldn’t be admitted in court. Citing the loss of evidence and key witnesses, Stengel ultimately said he would not pursue the case.
A few years later, Lee Remington, a professor at Bellarmine University in Louisville, began researching what happened to Jones and urged the Louisville police and the federal government to reinvestigate.
In 2018, the FBI added Jones to its list of cold cases. Her case remains unresolved.
Case Status open
Themes
- Open Cases
- Women
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)