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Delmos Jones was an African American anthropologist who devoted his intellectual career to working for social justice for all peoples. He died on February 4, 1999, a few months after he won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for the Anthropology of North America in December 1998. His research interests ranged from the Lahu, a hill tribe in Northern Thailand, to the Australian Aborigines, to community organizing among poor people in the United States, but he focused throughout on problems of inequality and the rights of oppressed groups. In his writing, his teaching, and his supportive relationships with colleagues, Del Jones worked in a quiet but determined way to address the most controversial social issues of our time.
Delmos, born in 1936 to sharecroppers on a farm near the small town of Browns, Alabama, his two older sisters, older brother, and younger sister helped pick cotton and did other work around the farm. Delmos's father worked off-season for the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, the coal mines, the shipyards in Mobile, Alabama, and the tanning works of Selma. The family moved around the South and traveled even as far as California. After the family settled again in Alabama, in an effort to have her escape the South, Delmos's oldest sister was sent to live with relatives in New York City, and the next sister left Alabama to go to high school in Cleveland, Ohio. Later, at the age of 15, Delmos went to stay with his oldest sister, then married and living in Oakland, California.
In Oakland, Jones completed high school, earning his keep by working in a bakery. His sister introduced him to her social circle, where he learned new ideas and attended progressive study groups. As a high school student he was also supported and encouraged by political activists who saw him as a potential leader for African American rights. Jones maintained an independent intellectual stance, however, not wishing to be chosen by others to represent anyone. Committed to combating inequality, he believed the most effective way to do this was through the advancement of science.
Jones, the first member of his family to complete a college degree, earned his B.A. in anthropology at San Francisco State College in 1959, an...