We are Jones Walker Wiley. And Here's Why You Should Care

Jones Walker Wiley, or JWW for short, sounds like a law firm and that’s not a coincidence. We are three lawyers with lots of opinions. We had to call this blog something and what we’re doing here is more important than what we call it, anyway.

What we’re doing is talking about the things that have animated our lives, all our lives – politics, sports, race, world affairs. They’re the things that have led us to think, read books, engage with each other, and engage with our fellow humans.

A word about who we are.  We are three men, all of African descent, all Americans who lived through the turbulence of the last part of the 20^th century and the beginnings of this one.  We’ve spent a lot of time thinking, talking, and reading about the things we now want to write about in this space.  We have a lot we want to say. We think it worth saying and worth hearing.

More specifically, we are:

J—Henry L. Jones, Jr.:  Yale graduate, former federal magistrate judge, grandfather supreme, master of the Smartphone;

W – Woodson D. Walker: Minnesota law graduate, real estate investor, phoenix, maybe the most serious man in America about racial, economic, and social justice; and

W – Rob L. Wiley:  Once-upon-a–time broadcaster, still-at-it lawyer, wannabe novelist, college football fanatic.

We share the view that we owe to our birth families – who cared for and nurtured us well – most of the credit for whatever success we may have had. We were “lucky” to have been born into supportive families and do not take this accident of birth for granted.  Each of us, therefore, has sought to do by our children as well as our parents did by us.

We know each other through friendships that started in Arkansas in the 60s and 70s and that survived and thrived even if two of us live other places now.  Two of us worked in the same law firm, two of us got involved in the same political enterprise, and two of us bonded through mutual obsessions with tennis and golf.

The three of us became a sum greater than those parts.  Our joint friendship developed the way many do – through co-incidences that involved work, professional collaborations, social interactions, and accident.  Mutual admiration and respect grew among us. The fact we had (and have) differences and disagreements made our interaction rich and intriguing.  We will put all that – and more – on display here.

We hope you will follow along on the journey by reading and commenting. We can’t promise you’ll always like what we have to say, but we can promise you’ll never be bored.