Della Jones, 105 years old, remembers well Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech during the March on Washington, D.C., delivered 45 years ago today from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. "Oh, I thought it was wonderful," Della said of the historic 1963 speech. "I think we all should have a dream for our lives and work towards that dream."
Della's dream was to be a teacher, and she taught for 36 1/2 years, first in Kentucky's Black schools and eventually in its integrated schools. "I just kept persevering, and I always had good results for doing so," she said in a recent interview.
Della began her teaching career in 1924 in a segregated rural school in southeastern Kentucky, crying herself to sleep at night because she was away from her home near Cincinnati for the first time. She was 19 years old.
"It was such a secluded place, but I made a commitment and was determined to finish up the year." In fact Della kept her commitment and only stopped teaching in 1929 when she married Bradley Jones. When she decided to get her college degree, she cleaned dorms for 17 straight summers to pay her way through Kentucky State University. She received her degree at the age of 53 in June of 1957, and Dr. King gave the commencement address at her college graduation. He was 29 at the time, already a famous civil rights leader. Della got to meet and shake Dr. King’s hand.
Della taught grade school and high school during her long teaching career and finished up as a high school librarian. Her husband died in 1969, and their daughter passed away in 1972. Della retired in 1974 and lives alone in the same house in Williamstown, Kentucky, that she has been in for 85 years, despite being a double amputee and confined to a wheelchair.
She's surrounded by devoted friends and family, including the local sheriff, who lives down the street and looks in on her regularly. They all got together for Della's birthday on July 7.
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