Tishaura O. Jones has been seeing a great deal of her father approaching Father’s Day 2012. She is on the August 7 primary ballot for Treasurer of the City of St. Louis, and her dad – former city Comptroller Virvus Jones – is managing her campaign.
“He has run successful citywide campaigns, and he ran both my successful campaigns for state representative,” Tishaura said. “There was no other choice.”
Jones was elected to represent the 63rd District in the Missouri House of Representatives in 2008 and reelected in 2010, then selected by her fellow Democrats as Assistant Minority House Leader. She became the first African American and the first female in Missouri history to hold this position.
“I felt like I had a finger on the pulse of everything going on in the Legislature,” she said. “I attended daily meetings where we reviewed everything going on from a legislative standpoint and met regularly with the Governor’s Office.”
In both the historic leadership position and her absorption in policy, Tishaura follows in her father’s footsteps.
Though not the first African American to serve as Comptroller of the City of St. Louis, Virvus Jones was the most visible and impactful person of any background to hold that position. He set the standard for elected officials fighting for minority inclusion in contracting and workforce. His fiscal prudence resulted in upgrades in the city’s credit rating, and his then-controversial stands against a generous pension package for firefighters and imprudent, one-sided deal with the St. Louis Rams for its football facility have left him looking very wise in the 21st century.
His oldest daughter, born in 1972, watched his every move as she was growing up.
“I definitely am cut from the cloth of diversity and inclusion and that kind of politics,” Tishaura said. “I saw my dad challenge the status quo on awarding contracts and fight to bring in more minority businesses on all levels of key projects during his tenure as Comptroller.”
Not only did his politics rub off on her, but also her college major of finance, which prepared her well for her run for Treasurer.
“My dad exposed me to career fields I’d never have thought about, like investment banking,” Tishaura said. “I met powerful black men and women in investment banking coming into St. Louis to do business with the city when my father was Comptroller.”
The impact of his leadership spanned far beyond his own family. “I often meet people who say, ‘Your father gave me a chance when no other person or municipality would,’” Tishaura said.
Her colleague in the State House, state Rep. Sylvester Taylor, is one of many examples.
“Sylvester said, ‘Tishaura, I love your father. He gave me a chance,’” she said. “Sylvester was an electrician trying to get into an apprentice program at the same time the stadium conversation was going on, and they called him. He said they wouldn’t have called otherwise.”
‘The next generation fearless’
Virvus said he is “almost overwhelmed” to observe how much his daughter learned from him about politics and policy, but he also made conscious decisions as a father to prepare her for life.
“I was born in a segregated society, and I made it a point to make sure she did not grow up in a segregated society,” Virvus said.
Indeed, Tishaura graduated from Affton High School – hardly a hotbed of black consciousness – then went on to study finance at an HBCU, Hampton University. The diversity of experiences toughened her.
“That’s partly where she gets her fearlessness. She’s not afraid to talk to anybody or challenge anybody,” Virvus said.
“A lot of people who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement wanted to have that happen – we wanted to make the next generation fearless. That’s why we fought segregation. We wanted our children to be able to compete in a society that looked at them as equals.”
He sees the effect of this work in her actions as a legislator.
“Some of the issues Tishaura has taken on, like changing the disparity in crack and cocaine sentencing, fighting for affordable health care – these are things she has taken up for people who can’t speak for themselves,” he said.
Virvus’ civil rights activism has had a national sweep that came to benefit his daughter. He ran the caucus in St. Louis for Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign; as a result of that relationship, Tishaura was the only candidate for Treasurer invited to Jackson’s recent meeting with black clergy and elected officials in St. Louis.
And then there was the U.S. Senate campaign by a young Illinois state legislator named Barack Obama, where Virvus got involved early as a volunteer fundraiser. Then-Senator Obama remembered this when Tishaura met him at subsequent Democratic National Conventions. He also remembered it when he saw Tishaura most recently at the White House as sitting President.
“The President remembered who my dad was, and it wasn’t in the white paper of who I was,” she said.
Having such a remarkably supportive and nurturing father has been especially crucial to Tishaura, since he is her only living parent. Her mother passed away in November 2000. “She was my rock, and there isn’t a day that passes where I don’t think of her,” Tishaura said.
Now the next generation is here in Tishaura’s son and the delight of her grandfather’s life, Aden Jones Jeffries. “My son is now 4 years old, and we’re preparing for him to enter kindergarten in the fall,” Tishaura said. “He’s a smart and energetic young man.”
Aden’s need for an extended family also does much to explain why his mother is leaving a leadership position in Jefferson City to run for office in the city where her father lives. But her father’s legacy – and remarkable foresight on issues that still haunt the city – make her a natural campaigner here.
Tishaura said, “I’ve been interviewed by several news outlets about city pensions and the Rams’ lease, and I have been able to quote my father. He was right 15 years ago. I have been able to quote the same things he said because I feel the same way he did.”
