Clarence B Jones, the man who not only helped Martin Luther King Jr. draft his famous 'I have a dream' speech but also smuggled the 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' out of a cell like some kind of civil rights courier, has died at 95.

Jones died Friday at a senior living community in Cupertino, California, surrounded by family, who issued a statement that read like a final mic drop: 'Our father lived a life of conscience.' They added that he believed, until his final days, that an idea is more powerful than the march of any army - which is a nice way of saying he never lost faith in the power of a good sentence.

As King's personal attorney, Jones was in the thick of it during the civil rights movement's greatest hits. He helped craft King's 1967 'Beyond Vietnam' speech, where King told America that maybe fighting a war and fighting poverty at the same time wasn't the best use of resources. Jones also worked on the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan case, where the Supreme Court basically told Alabama it couldn't sue newspapers for telling the truth about police beating protesters.

Born in Philadelphia in 1931 to domestic workers, Jones was class valedictorian of his integrated New Jersey high school. He went on to Columbia University, got drafted by the Army, earned a law degree from Boston University, and then King called him up in 1960 to help with a tax evasion case. Jones pivoted from entertainment law in California to become King's full-time adviser, attorney, and speechwriter - because sometimes the universe sends you a better gig.

After King's assassination in 1968, Jones took his talents to Wall Street, becoming the first Black American to be an allied member of the New York Stock Exchange. He later taught at the University of San Francisco and Stanford, co-founded an institute for nonviolence, and published a memoir in 2023 titled 'Last of the Lions: an African American Journey in Memoir.'

In 2024, President Joe Biden gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. A few weeks later, Jones threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a San Francisco Giants game with Stephen Curry, who produced a short documentary on him that won an award at Sundance and will stream on Netflix later this year.

Jones is survived by his five children and longtime partner Lin Walters. Funeral plans are being finalized, presumably with a dream-themed playlist.