Article by Amy Kates White | Photos by Evan Krape
Moments before Van Jones took the Mitchell Hall stage May 10 for a conversation with Valerie Biden Owens, chair of the University of Delaware’s Biden Institute, the last delicate notes of a string quartet arrangement of Katy Perry’s “Firework” slowly faded out. Likely a random selection to the pre-conversation playlist, the title was strangely apropos: The thesis statement Jones brought to a mixed crowd of students and community members was that the incessant flames lobbed between the left and the right will only serve to combust and consume. Instead, Jones urged, let us come together in civility and ignite the spark of true bipartisan power in U.S. politics.
The chat was one in a series focused on inspiring and fostering civil discourse via the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Ithaca Initiative, of which Jones is a SNF Ithaca Fellow. Launched in 2021, the SNF Ithaca Initiative aims to empower UD students to be engaged, effective citizens exposed to public servants across the ideological spectrum.
Best known as a CNN host, Obama administration adviser, Emmy Award-winning producer and New York Times best-selling author, Jones was vulnerable as he discussed his lesser-known narrative. He tethered his story fiercely to that of his father, who grew up in “abject poverty” in rural Tennessee in a “shotgun shack,” a property so narrow that all the rooms stacked behind each other. “If someone fired a shotgun into the front door, that bullet would go through every room,” he said.
His father’s refusal to falter was so tremendous that not only did he put himself through college and become a revered public school principal, Jones noted, but he helped anyone who wanted the same.
“The day I graduated Yale, we took a photo of him with his hands raised high,” Jones said. “He said, ‘You’re a ninth-generation American, but the first in our family to be born with all of your rights. Just look at what you’ve done in one generation.’ You could have rolled the credits on my life that day.… Whomever in my family got out of poverty, they did so via a bridge called my father’s back.”
And now Jones is the bridge, laying himself down in the chasm between Democrats and Republicans, and urging each side to take the first few steps toward civility and collaboration.
“But how?” a candid Biden Owens asked, palms upturned. “How do you find common ground? We can all sing Kumbaya and hold hands, but when you know it’s a bad actor smiling you in the face … how?”
Jones unloosened a sly smile. “Well, I wasn’t always like this,” he said.
A far-left activist in the Bay Area in his 20s, Jones said he found himself in the trenches of “urban warfare,” engaged in the fight after the Rodney King beating and California’s draconian Three Strikes criminal legislation. He was a rabble-rouser who eventually burned out. So burdened with depression, he couldn’t even get out of bed.
But it was via that breakdown that Jones broke through.
In an effort to make himself “whole,” Jones wandered out of urban justice and into other sectors; namely, green energy. He started making connections with companies and asking, “Who are you hiring? Because I’ve got a bunch of poor Black kids in Oakland who need work. Why don’t we work together and fight pollution and poverty at the same time?”
“I was able to walk back into those same urban neighborhoods with job offers in my hands instead of protest signs,” Jones said. “And that was a powerful moment, because before then, I was of the mind that if you don’t look like me, if you’re not protesting in these streets, then you don’t give a damn and you are my enemy.”
Two years later, Jones’ effort in California was replicated on a national level when the Green Jobs Act of 2007 was passed.
Jones’ suggestion to those wondering how to walk the divide themselves: Turn off the TV.
Yes, even CNN.
