Obituary Record

Gulfside Methodist Assembly for Negroes at Waveland was the scene of the burial Monday afternoon of Bishop Robert E. Jones, 88, founder of the institution, who died last Wednesday at Flint-Goodridge Hospital. Religious rites were at Mr. Zion Methodist Church in New Orleans.

First Negro to be elected by the Methodist Church as a general superintendent of the whole church, he was a close associate of Booker T. Washington and assisted the Negro educator in many of his projects to raise the educational and economic levels of his race in the South. He was a founding trustee of Dillard University in New Orleans.

Born in Greensboro, N.C., he earned his B.A. from Bennett College there and attended Gammon Seminary in Atlanta. He was ordained in 1893 and the next year became assistant manager of the Southwestern Christian Advocate of which he was named editor in 1904. He held that post until elevated to the episcopacy in 1920.

Conducting funeral services were Bishop Willis J. King resident bishop of the New Orleans area and Bishop Edgar A. Love.

Source: Sea Coast Echo 5/26/1960