Memoirs of a Black Philosopher

Memoirs of a Black Philosopher is a history of both anti-Black racism and the author's indefatigable struggle to transcend it by educating himself. These memoirs demonstrate the value of academic philosophy’s “upward path” from the ordinary to the sublime.

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Memoirs of a Black Philosopher is a chronicle of the life and times of Richard A. Jones. In these memoirs, Jones relates the dislocations and disillusionments of Black people in the great migration of Southern Blacks to Northern cities. He recalls the educational trauma brought on by Brown v Board, and his education in the inner-city public schools of Washington DC and Detroit Michigan. Beginning his higher education in the HCBUs at Fisk and Howard Universities, after serving in the US Air Force, Jones begins his educational diaspora in Midwestern universities. His struggles to attain an education culminates in a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Minot State University in 1970. After working as a federal Head Start director, Marketing representative at IBM, and college Minority Affairs Director, Jones begins a new career as a high school mathematics teacher. Never satisfied with his “education,” he begins a new direction in academic philosophy. After completing an MA in philosophy at the University of Denver, he enrolls in a PhD program at the University of Colorado at the age of forty-nine. After completing the degree, Jones teaches philosophy at Kansas State University, followed by returning to Howard University, where he finished his teaching career. At Howard, Jones realizes that “philosophy is more” than teaching and writing. He becomes the Co-coordinator of the Radical Philosophy Association (RPA). His political activity with RPA culminates in conferences in Cuba and South Africa, where he sees the people’s struggles with global capitalism. Jones left Howard in 2013 and continues his “philosophical praxes” in contemplation and writing. His story is one of the unending struggles for human dignity.