The life and times of A. Quinn Jones
Early African-American Educator Left His Mark on the County
Smathers Library, University of Florida Lincoln High School's first graduating class in 1925. Principal Jones is in the back row, far left.
Erica Brough/ The Gainesville SunPublished: Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 11:39 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 11:39 p.m.
"Please put me intouch with a real red-blooded man for the principalship of Union Academy. No one knows better than you the type of man we are seeking."
The year was 1921, and Benjamin Childs, a trustee of the largest public school for African-Americans in Alachua County, put out an appeal to Nathan B. Young, president of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College in Tallahassee, for help filling an important vacancy in Gainesville.
President Young promptly replied that a Mr. Quinn Jones was his recommendation. "He is a college graduate of this institute and has considerable experience in teaching and (is) a man of excellent character."
Thus began the relationship between A. Quinn Jones and Alachua County's educational system that would last for the next 75 years.
The "red-blooded" Mr. Jones quickly accepted the offer of the Alachua County School Board, sweetened by the prospect that the city of Gainesville would shortly build a new red brick school costing from $75,000 to $100,000 for its black students. The old Union Academy, a wood-frame building built shortly after the Civil War, had been expanded several times but by 1921 was badly worn and bulging at the seams.
"This is an exceptional opportunity for the right man to make good. Moreover, if he makes good, he has the position as long as he desires it," promised Childs, along with the monthly salary of $125.
It turns out that Allan Quinn Jones would spend the next 36 years, the rest of his professional career, as an educational leader in Gainesville as the principal of three schools. But his influence as an educator lasted far beyond his retirement in 1957, up until his death in 1997 at 104 years old.
As the last principal of the Union Academy, then a junior high school, Jones arrived in time to help plan the new building, which would become Lincoln High School. According to stories of the time, Jones used the resourcefulness he developed as a child to benefit the new school.
Joel Buchanan, who attended Lincoln High School years later, recounted one of the early legends about A. Quinn Jones. When the temporary outhouses in the new school yard were replaced by indoor restrooms, Professor Jones instructed a teacher and some students to take the lumber from the outhouse walls and fashion shelves and tables for the school library. He then asked parents who worked for white families to gather discarded books, magazines, and newspapers from their employers to fill those shelves.
He was endlessly resourceful in providing for his school and proud of the successful campaign he led in 1922 to extend teacher pay to eight months when the school board appropriated only enough money for six months. The teachers and school trustees organized concerts, plays, fish fries, and other events to raise $1,600 to operate for a full eight-month term.
A native of Quincy, A. Quinn Jones had worked his way through school since he was an 8-year-old carrying water to workers on a tobacco farm. He received his bachelor of science degree in education at Florida A&M College in 1915, after supporting himself waiting tables. While there, he became a protégé of President Young.
Jones began his teaching career in Gadsden County, Florida. Once more there was water to carry, this time from a nearby house to the rural school, where class was held in an old church building. Children had to bring pennies and nickels to buy chalk at his next school, in Marianna, but at least there was a pump in the yard and a wood stove in the classroom. He advanced his professional skills as principal at Washington High School in Pensacola for the next few years. He married fellow teacher Agnes Smith in 1918, and started a family, working one summer at the shipyard in Pensacola during World War I.
Jones had hoped to make enough money to return to college and earn a degree in medicine, but soon gave up that dream and instead earned a master's degree in education in 1920. His advanced degree and his leadership experience made him the perfect fit for his new job in Gainesville, where he was soon known as Professor Jones.
The fine two-story red brick school, called Lincoln High School (although it held classes for grades one through 10), opened in 1923. Professor Jones also set about extending the school to 12th grade and gaining full accreditation from the state of Florida. It was a very proud day when the first class of eight students graduated from grade twelve in 1925. The following year, Lincoln became the second fully accredited African-American high school in Florida.
The Jones family, which included four children, moved into their new home, a neat bungalow directly across from LHS, and became a part of Gainesville's vibrant African-American community life. But the influence of the young principal soon spread well beyond the city. Many of the teachers who taught in the smaller, rural schools in the county were graduates of LHS, continuing a tradition that started at the old Union Academy. Along with his duties as principal, Professor Jones also taught summer school and extension classes for teachers, moving them forward in their careers.
Dr. Oliver Jones, an educator who retired from the Alachua County school system in 1981, described his father in a 2007 article: "He was a great motivator, and he got the best out of every student."
A. Quinn Jones, whose first wife had died in 1928, married Frederica Jones in 1937. Freddie, as she was called, was a fellow Florida A&M graduate and a member of the Lincoln faculty. She became the chair of the LHS English department, but her real love was music.
A talented pianist, she taught many children in the community to play the piano. One of her pupils was Joel Buchanan, now the African-American liaison for the University of Florida libraries. He recalls the deep respect the community felt for the couple. When he was one of three teenagers chosen to integrate white Gainesville High School in 1964, he would sit on the porch with them and tell Professor and Mrs. Jones about the differences between the two high schools and about his plans to go to college after he graduated. Always interested in the progress of his students, Jones would stress the importance of education over and over.
When a new, modern Lincoln High School for African-American students opened in 1957 on Waldo Road, Professor Jones served as its first principal, retiring the following year. The red brick building built in 1923 as the first Lincoln High School was renamed in his honor as the A. Quinn Jones Center.
Professor and Mrs. Jones continued to live in the house across the street and remained active in the community and in the Greater Bethel AME Church. An historic marker noting his importance to education in Florida was recently placed in front of the Jones home, which is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Want to learn more?
The A. Quinn Jones Collection was donated to the Smathers Library at the University of Florida by his son, Dr. Oliver Jones. The personal papers, books, photographs and other documents in the collection are now open for research and are a valuable source of information about the educational journey of African Americans in Florida.
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