Ruth Braswell Jones was a prominent educator whose career spanned for forty-seven years.

Jones was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina on November 21, 1914, and was the seventh daughter, of William and Arkaanna (Sanders) Braswell. Jones received a diploma with distinction from Brick Junior College in North Carolina (1933) and a B.S. degree in Education with distinction from Elizabeth City State Teachers College in 1948. She also attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T) in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she received her M.S. degree in Education in 1960.

As a master teacher, her impact has been recognized by colleagues and associates at the local, district, and state levels. Among the awards received were: the Outstanding Service Award, given by the Rocky Mount Unit of the North Carolina Teachers Association-Association of Classroom Teachers, 1969; the prestigious Terry Sanford Award for Creativity in Teaching, presented by the North Carolina Association of Educators in 1972, and the Teaching Career and Service to Education Award, given by the Edgecombe County Unit of the North Carolina Association of Educators in 1980.

Jones was also the first and only woman in North Carolina to have been elected president of two state education associations, the all-black North Carolina Teachers Association which existed prior to integration, and the North Carolina Association of Educators, the integrated association of educators that was organized after the separate black and white associations were dissolved; chairperson of the National Education Association’s Bylaws and Rules Committee; the first black woman from North Carolina to be elected to the National Education Association’s Board of Directors; the first black president of the Southeast Regional Association of Classroom Teachers, and member of the Political Action Steering Committee of the National Education Association.

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Ruth Braswell Jones (1914- )