Van Jones Biography
Van Jones is an American political analyst, lawyer, author, civil rights advocate, and Political commentator working for CNN as a host and contributor. He joined the CNN news team in June 2013, after previously working for Advocates for Opioid Recovery.
Van Jones Career
Jones is a political commentator for CNN. He often appears on the network’s shows and in special political coverage. Van Jones has been the host of The Van Jones Show, The Redemption Project, and The Messy Truth on CNN. Jones also helped make The Messy Truth VR Experience, a virtual reality show that won an Emmy Award.
Jones is the CEO of REFORM Alliance, which began in January 2019. Starting with probation and parole, the REFORM Alliance’s goal is to drastically cut the number of people who are unfairly in the care of the criminal justice system. An award-winning recording artist named Meek Mill; Michael Rubin, co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and executive chairman of Fanatics; Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, entrepreneur and business mogul; Robert Kraft, CEO of Kraft Group and owner of the New England Patriots; Clara Wu Tsai, co-owner of the Brooklyn Nets and philanthropic investor; Daniel S. Loeb, CEO and founder of Third Point LLC; and Galaxy Digital CEO and founder
Jones has been a leader in the fight to change the way courts handle crimes for more than 25 years. Among the successful social businesses he has started are the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and the Dream Corps, which is a social justice accelerator that is home to #YesWeCode, #GreenForAll, and #cut50. It was the Dream Corps that recently led the charge to pass the FIRST STEP Act, a bipartisan Federal bill that The New York Times calls “the most substantial breakthrough in criminal justice in a generation.”
Jones is an attorney who went to Yale and has written three best-selling books in the New York Times: Beyond the Messy Truth (2017), The Green Collar Economy (2008), and Rebuild the Dream (2012). These books are about his journey from being an activist for human rights and the environment to working as a policy assistant in the White House. He pushed for the Green Jobs Act the most. This was the first federal law that officially used the word “green jobs.” It was signed into law by George W. Bush in 2007. During the Obama administration, the law led to the national funding of $500 million for training for green jobs.
When President Barack Obama was in office in 2009, Jones was in charge of Green Jobs. In this job, he helped to run the process between different government agencies that handled the multibillion-dollar investment in environmental and green energy skills training and job creation. He has also won many awards and been featured on many lists of accomplished people, such as the World Economic Forum’s “Young Global Leader” title, Rolling Stone’s “12 Leaders Who Get Things Done” list, TIME’s 2009 “100 Most Influential People in the World” list, the NAACP President’s Award, and The Root’s “The Root 100.”
Jones graduated from Jackson Central-Merry High School in 1986. It was a public high school in his city. He went to the University of Tennessee at Martin and got his Bachelor of Science in political science and communication. Jones also did work as an intern at The Jackson Sun, the Shreveport Times, and the Associated Press during this time. He started going by the name “Van” when he was 17 and worked at The Jackson Sun.
At UT Martin, Jones helped start and run several campus-based publications that were left on their own. A few of them were the Fourteenth Circle (at the University of Tennessee), the Periscope (at Vanderbilt University), the New Alliance Project (for the whole state of Tennessee), and the Third Eye (for the African-American community in Nashville). Jones later said that UT Martin helped him get ready for a bigger life.
Jones quit being a reporter and went to Connecticut to go to Yale Law School. There were protests in 1992 after the Rodney King beating and trial. He was one of several law students chosen by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which was based in San Francisco, to be legal monitors. King had been beaten by cops, and the beating was caught on camera. Three of the cops were found not guilty, and the jury couldn’t decide what to do with the fourth officer. Jones and other people were arrested during the protests, but Jones’ charges were later dropped by the district attorney.
Jones and the other protesters who were arrested got a small court settlement. He later stated that “the incident deepened my disaffection with the system and accelerated my political radicalization”. Jones was very upset by the hearing and the decision. Jones said in an interview in October 2005 that he had been “a rowdy nationalist on April 28th” before the King decision, but that he had become a communist by late August 1992.
At CNN, Scholes works alongside; Fareed Zakaria, Fredricka Whitfield, Bill Weir, Amara Walker, John Avlon, Dana Bash, David Axelrod, John Berman, Victor Blackwell, Wolf Blitzer, Kate Bolduan, Pamela Brown, Kim Brunhuber, Erin Burnett, Alisyn Camerota, Julia Chatterley, Rosemary Church, Laura Coates, Anderson Cooper, Audie Cornish, Amanda Davies, Max Foster, Bianna Golodryga, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Laila Harrak, Erica Hill, Michael Holmes, Brianna Keilar, Lynda Kinkade, John King, Melissa Knowles, Christina Macfarlane, John Miller, Veronica Miracle, Bianca Nobilo, Abby Phillip, Brad Parks, Richard Quest, Don Riddell, Michael Smerconish, Boris Sanchez, Tom Sater.
Van Jones Salary
Jones earns a salary of about $47,000-$120,000.
Van Jones Net Worth
Jones has an estimated net worth of about $1 Million – $7 Million which he has earned through his career as a political commentator.
Van Jones Age
Jones was born on September 20, 1968, in Jackson, Tennessee, United States. He is 56 years old as of 2024, and he celebrates his birthday on the 20th of September every year.
Van Jones Height and Weight
Jones stands at a height of 6 feet 1 inch (1.85m) and weighs 80 kg (176 lbs).
Van Jones Family
Jones was born together with his twin sister Angela Jones in Jackson, Tessesse on September 20, 1968, to Loretta Jean (mother) and Willie Anthony Jones (father). His mother is a high school teacher and his father is a middle school principal. Jones’ grandfather served as a leader in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church where Jones used to accompany him to religious conferences and sit all day to listen to the adults.
Van Jones Wife and Children
Jones was married to Jana Carter, an attorney in 2005 and divorced in 2019. The couple stated that they still love each other, raise their children together, run their businesses together, and support each other’s growth together but they cannot be together as husband and wife. Before their divorce, they were blessed with two children; Mattai and Cabral. During the divorce, Jana was asking for physical custody and joint legal. Later in 2022, Jones was blessed with a third child, a daughter, with his friend Noemi Zamacona with whom they are just co-parenting.
Van Jones New Wife
Jones does not have another wife after divorcing Jana Carter. He agreed with his longtime friend Noemi Zamacona to have a child together and co-parent. They are not in any kind of relationship other than co-parenting.
Van Jones Social Media Platform
Jones is very active on his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages. He has 951k followers on Twitter 1.1M followers on Instagram, and 1M followers on Facebook.