J. Raymond Jones ‘The Harlem Fox’, The First Black Leader of Tammany

Others who benefited from his political prowess were Judge James Watson of the Federal Customs Court; Edward Dudley, administrative judge of the New York State Criminal Court; Judge Harold Stevens of the State Appellate Division; Judge Herbert Evans of the State Civil Court, and Fire Commiissioner Robert O. Lowery.

Mr. Paterson, the former State Senator, said yesterday, “Ray Jones was a distinguished man whose advice was sought by Presidential candidates.” They included Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. Mr. Paterson added, “This is a man whose full scope was never appreciated and never achieved clearly because he was an African-American.”

Mr. Paterson said that when Mr. Jones was elected to the City Council in 1962 “he elevated the level of discussion in the City Council.” Founded Democratic Club

As a City Councilman, Mr. Jones was also county chairman and district leader from 1964 to 1967.

In Harlem, Mr. Jones founded the Carver Democratic Club in the early 1920′s. The club served as his original political base. He went into politics with a vengeance in 1921, he said, after delivering voter registration books to the whites-only Cayuga Club. When he arrived, Mr. Jones recalled, he was told he had come to the wrong place. “I had no appreciaton for history at that moment, but I was filled with resentment.”

The contrast with his Harlem club, he said, “was too much for my stomach, and I was really hooked.” From then on he held Harlem together politically and taught the community to campaign, to collect signatures on petitions and to register to vote.

Mr. Jones credited himself with the idea of community planning boards, which came out of a conversation at a party he held in the early 1950′s for Mayor William O’Dwyer, for whom he was personal secretary. Adviser to Congressman Powell

Mr. Jones and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. were often at odds, but in the long run, the Representative adopted him as his adviser. However, in 1967 when Mr. Jones tangled with then Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the Harlem politician quit as county leader and district leader. Mr. Jones, who had been in politics for 45 years, said he lacked Mr. Kennedy’s support when the Senator joined reform Democrats and backed a reform candidate for Surrogate Court in a 1966 Democratic primary.

When he eventually got out of politics, Mr. Jones retired to St. Thomas, V.I., where his wife, Ruth Holloway Jones, was collector of customs.

He is survived his daughter, Dorothy Bryan of Albany.

His biography, “The Harlem Fox,” was written by John C. Walter and published in 1989 by the State of New York University Press.

Mr. Jones was a courtly figure, and in addition to his political savvy, he was often ready with a quip. It was not out of character for him to poke his finger into a colleague’s portly abdomen and say, “I discern that there is no diminution of your opulence.”