Barbara Ann Posey Jones

Jones joined the youth council of the Oklahoma City NAACP at the age of 14, and on a visit to a freedom rally in New York City, ate at a lunch counter for the first time. On her return home, she became one of the spokespeople for the youth Oklahoma lunch counter sit-ins of 1958-1959. The Chi Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Zeta Sorority named her "Girl of the Year" of 1958,[3] Datebook magazine published her article, "Why I Sit In"[4] in 1960, and she gave a speech entitled "My America" at the 51st Annual NAACP Convention in June 1960.[5] She graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1963, and completed a master's degree in Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1966. There, she met her husband, political scientist Mack Jones, at a 1962 NAACP meeting.[6] She completed a PhD in Economics at Georgia State University in 1973.

Jones began her career as an economics professor at Clark College, which later became Clark Atlanta University, serving as department chair even before she finished her PhD.[1] She taught there from 1971 to 1987, winning numerous teaching awards. She joined Prairie View A&M as Department chair in 1987, quickly becoming Dean of the College of Business from 1989-1997. In 1997, she became Dean of the School of Business at Alabama A&M University, where she served as a Professor of Economics until her retirement in 2016.[7][8]

• Chapter 8 of Olson; Emami, Zohreh (2002). Engendering Economics: Conversations with Women Economists in the United States. Psychology Press. doi:10.4324/9780203103074-12.