Finer Pearls Foundation

Alberta Odell Jones was born in Louisville in 1930. In 1959, upon admission to the Kentucky bar the same year she received her law degree, Jones became Kentucky's first practicing African American woman attorney. She later became the first woman appointed as a city attorney in Jefferson County. Jones was active with Louisville Urban League, the NAACP, and she founded the Independent Voters Association of Louisville where she initiated programs to educate African Americans on how to use voting machines. Jones was killed in 1965 and her murder remains unsolved. The Eta Zeta chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority of which Jones was a member when she was a practicing attorney, is honoring Jones and her life achievements by commissioning a statue of Jones to be prominently displayed in her hometown of Louisville. The LBF grant will help fund the creation of the statue and the development of educational programming about Jones contributions to the profession of law.