Trailblazers of a New Era

Dr. Joseph Endom Jones and Rosa Kinckle Jones, prominent educators in post-Emancipation Richmond, are buried here. Joseph Jones, enslaved at birth, taught at Virginia Union University for 45 years. A minister, he served as corresponding secretary of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention and installed many Black clergymen in pastorates. His wife, Rosa, earned a teaching degree from Howard University and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. She taught music at Hartshorn Memorial College for decades and led the Woman’s Union Beneficial Department, an insurance company. Their son Eugene Kinckle Jones led the National Urban League and in 1906 co-founded Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.