Cleon Jones Keeps Making Miracles Happen

Cleon Jones looks at the commitment he has made to his community as just returning the favor.

“My parents didn’t raise me,” Jones, the left fielder on 1969 Miracle Mets, said. “I was basically raised by my grandmother and great grandmother.”

“In reality, my community raised me” Jones added. “I just want to give back to people the way people gave to me.”

That’s why for the last 40 years, Jones and his wife, Angela, have led the charge to remove every piece of blithe from their neighborhoods in Mobile, Alabama, most specifically the section where Cleon was born; Africatown.

Africatown was founded in 1860 by a group West Africans who were a part of the last known illegal shipment of slaves to enter the United States. Upon arriving, the ship docked into the Mobile Bay. The slaves were smuggled onto land and forced to work on the ship owner’s land until the conclusion of the Civil War. Once the group was freed they settled in a section of Mobile that became known as Africatown.

“When I was growing up, we had 10,000 people living here in Africatown,” Jones remembered. “Now we only have about 1,900 people living here. Our motto is if we build it, they will come back.”

Jones recently started his own foundation that teams with members of the community to help bring his old neighborhood back to its original glory by doing things like painting houses, renovating homes, mowing lawns and even helping homeowners with household tasks like taking out garbage.

“It’s really been sort of a community effort,” he said. “We have companies helping us out whenever they can. Just the other day a roofing company donated a roof for a house we were rebuilding” Jones smiled.

“We have always been a close-knit community. Everyone knew the names of everyone else’s kids. We always were there for each other” Cleon reminisced.

Jones credits his sense of duty to his hometown of Mobile to an old friend of his father’s, Gabe Coleman, who is now deceased.

“Gabe had a million jobs but he still found time to do everything for anyone who had a problem.” Jones explained. “He wanted to make Africatown the best possible place. He raised nine kids here but still managed to be there for the people. When he passed on, I knew I had to carry on his work.”

Aside from continuing to build and renovate homes in the community, Cleon also has future goals like building a farmer’s market.

“We don’t even have a grocery store here now,” he said. We need to build a market for people to shop.”

One house renovation that is especially dear to Angela and Cleon was for a long-time family friend, Carolyn Edwards.

Miss Edwards, who is confined to a wheelchair, saw the ground floor of her home destroyed after a fire in 2012 and she was forced to live in the attic.

“When I saw Carolyn [after the fire] she told me all she wanted to do was to come home again” Angela explained.

“I always used to see Carolyn in the front porch and we always had a nice talks” Angela remembered. “Then I found out she and her grandkids had to move to the other side of Mobile because of the fire.”

Angela told her husband the story of what had happened to her dear friend and Cleon went to work, rebuilding Carolyn’s home.

“I needed to get back to the neighborhood,” Miss Carolyn Edwards expressed.” I wanted to come home. After the fire I never thought I would smile again. Cleon and Angela are doing God’s work. They do so much for the people in the community. That’s what we’re all about in Mobile, caring for one another.”

Jones has every reason to be proud of his hometown of Mobile. Five Hall of Famers, Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Satchel Paige, Ozzie Smith and Billy Williams all call the city their home.

“When my playing days were over Angela and I were deciding whether to go or stay [in New York]” Jones said. “It really wasn’t much of a choice. Both of us knew we had to go home and make Mobile the best possible place it could be.”

Angela and Cleon, who recently celebrated 55 years of marriage together, had very similar views of their desire to go home to Mobile.

“When Cleon stopped playing we had a couple of options,” she explained. “We could have moved to California or stayed in New York. The decision to stay in Mobile was quite simple.”

“I was raised in the Whistler section of Mobile and Cleon was born in Africatown, our common thread is that the village where we grow up helped raise us and we wanted to give back.”

Most people who grow up in Mobile leave and don’t come back. The Jones were the exception.

“We have a lot of old homes here,” Angela went on. “That’s why the work we do in so important.”

Angela and Cleon hold weekly group meetings where they discuss where and what their next project will be.

“I am kind of like the chief cook book keeper and bottler washer,” she said with a smile. “We are all working together for one goal and that’s to make Mobile a better place to live.”

Jones compiled a .281 batting average in his 13-year major league career. He will always have place in Mets lore because of 1969, but in reality his legacy off the field might be even greater.

“Baseball was a big part of my life,” concluded Cleon. “But the work that Angela and I are doing is even more meaningful. We are making a difference for people in our hometown which both of us love.”