56 Facts About Van Jones

1.

Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones was born on September 20,1968 and is an American news and political commentator, author, and lawyer.

2.

Van Jones is the co-founder of several non-profit organizations, a three-time New York Times bestselling author, a CNN host and contributor, and an Emmy Award winner.

3.

Van Jones founded or co-founded several non-profit organizations, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and the Dream Corps.

4.

Jones has hosted or co-hosted CNN shows including Crossfire, The Messy Truth, The Van Jones Show and The Redemption Project with Van Jones.

5.

Van Jones is the author of The Green Collar Economy, Rebuild the Dream, and Beyond the Messy Truth; all three books rank as New York Times bestsellers.

6.

Van Jones is the co-founder of Magic Labs Media LLC, a producer of the WEBBY Award-winning Messy Truth digital series and Emmy Award-winning The Messy Truth VR Experience with Van Jones.

7.

Van Jones worked with the Trump administration and members of Congress from both parties to pass a criminal justice reform effort known as the First Step Act.

8.

Van Jones was formerly CEO of the REFORM Alliance, an initiative founded by Jay-Z and Meek Mill to transform the criminal justice system.

9.

Van Jones was a longtime colleague of, and advisor to, musician Prince.

10.

Anthony Kapel Van Jones and his twin sister Angela were born in Jackson, Tennessee, on September 20,1968, to high school teacher Loretta Jean and middle school principal Willie Anthony Van Jones.

11.

Van Jones graduated from Jackson Central-Merry High School, a public high school in his hometown, in 1986.

12.

Van Jones earned his Bachelor of Science in communication and political science from the University of Tennessee at Martin.

13.

Van Jones adopted the nickname "Van" when he was 17 and working at The Jackson Sun.

14.

At UT Martin, Van Jones helped to launch and lead a number of independent, campus-based publications.

15.

Van Jones later credited UT Martin for preparing him for a larger life.

16.

The arrested protesters, including Van Jones, won a small legal settlement.

17.

Van Jones later said that "the incident deepened my disaffection with the system and accelerated my political radicalization".

18.

Van Jones's activism was spurred by seeing the deep racial inequality in New Haven, Connecticut, particularly in prosecution of drug use.

19.

Van Jones became affiliated with many left activists, and co-founded a socialist collective called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement.

20.

Van Jones was affiliated with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, which had brought him to the city as a legal observer in 1992.

21.

In 1995, Van Jones initiated their project of Bay Area PoliceWatch, the region's only bar-certified hotline and lawyer-referral service for victims of police abuse.

22.

Van Jones operated out of "a closet-like office" within the space of Eva Paterson, Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee, and used his personal computer.

23.

Van Jones began to work for more solidarity and building broader alliances across politics and class to achieve goals.

24.

Van Jones worked to establish the nation's first "Green Jobs Corps" in Oakland.

25.

In September 2007, Van Jones attended the Clinton Global Initiative and announced his plans to launch Green for All, a new national NGO dedicated to creating green pathways out of poverty in America.

26.

Van Jones published his first book, The Green Collar Economy, in 2008.

27.

Van Jones had a limited publicity budget and no national media platform.

28.

In March 2009, Van Jones was appointed as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

29.

Van Jones's appointment was criticized by conservative media such as WorldNetDaily and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, who mentioned Van Jones on fourteen episodes of his show.

30.

In July 2009, Color of Change, which Van Jones had founded but left, launched a campaign urging advertisers on Beck's Fox News show to pull their ads, in protest of Beck's saying that President Obama had a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture".

31.

Van Jones used strong language to refer to Congressional Republican lawmakers, and himself, when conveying that Democrats need to step up the fight.

32.

Van Jones was criticized for allegedly having signed a 2004 petition by 911Truth.

33.

Van Jones immediately said he did not agree with the statement and had not signed the petition.

34.

Arianna Huffington predicted Beck's efforts would backfire by freeing Van Jones to be more outspoken.

35.

In February 2010, Van Jones became a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

36.

Van Jones led their Green Opportunity Initiative "to develop a clearly articulated agenda for expanding investment, innovation, and opportunity through clean energy and environmental restoration".

37.

Around the same time, Van Jones received appointments at Princeton University, as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

38.

Van Jones continued to advocate for green jobs after leaving the Obama administration.

39.

On October 2,2010, Van Jones spoke at the One Nation Working Together rally in Washington, DC He addressed linking the fight against poverty with the fight against pollution, saying that green jobs would bring "real solutions" instead of "hateful rhetoric".

40.

Van Jones previously served as a keynote speaker for Powershift 2009.

41.

Van Jones claimed 127,000 people had become involved in the movement by the end of July 2011.

42.

Van Jones founded Advocates for Opioid Recovery together with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Rep.

43.

Van Jones has served on the boards of numerous environmental and nonprofit organizations, including Natural Resources Defense Council, 1Sky, the National Apollo Alliance, Social Venture Network, Rainforest Action Network, Bioneers, Julia Butterfly Hill's "Circle of Life" organization and Free Press.

44.

Van Jones currently serves on the board of trustees at Demos.

45.

Van Jones served as a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress and a Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

46.

In 2016, Jones launched The Messy Truth, a news feature documentary series and subsequent studio discussion series, The Messy Truth with Van Jones, which aired in 2017 on CNN.

47.

In 2018, Jones launched The Van Jones Show on CNN, with Jay-Z as his first guest.

48.

Van Jones continued after the end of Crossfire as a regular CNN contributor.

49.

Van Jones has contributed to segments on a wide range of topics, including Obama administration policies, Supreme Court decisions, protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting by police of an unarmed young black man, and the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

50.

In late spring 2020, after the police murder of George Floyd and subsequent worldwide Black Lives Matter rallies, protests and marches, Van Jones advised the Trump White House on police reform policy.

51.

Van Jones revealed that the musician had been a major philanthropist who preferred to give anonymously to a wide spectrum of charitable causes.

52.

Van Jones was among the 20 people who gathered for a private memorial service at Paisley Park after Prince's death.

53.

In 2019, Van Jones was announced as the CEO of REFORM Alliance, an initiative founded by Jay-Z, Meek Mill, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft among others.

54.

Van Jones was accused of having a conflict of interest for running a PR firm called Megaphone Strategies which openly lobbies electoral college electors not to cast their vote for Donald Trump.

55.

Liberals criticized Van Jones for working with Jared Kushner on police reform and criminal justice reform.

56.

Van Jones covered the matter on CNN and failed to disclose this to his viewers.