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Black History Month: Continuing A Legacy Of Action And Perseverance

DETROIT (WWJ) -- William Jones Jr. is celebrating his six-year anniversary as CEO of Focus: HOPE while trying to build on the legacy of the late co-founders, Father William Cunningham and Eleanor Josaitis.

"We're still serving a tremendous number of people -- over 43,000 -- not just us, but with a lot of our partners and the food program," Jones said. "That's been extraordinarily effective -- we've got our early childhood center, education center is resurrected, we feel like it's in good hands, it's doing both early head start as well as head start."

William Jones Jr.
William Jones Jr.

Focus: HOPE is also still training people to become machinist and IT professionals. Jones retired from Chrysler in 2008.

"I joined Chrysler at a time when a lot of people were advocating that the American auto industry was dead. I saw it as a tremendous opportunity -- I felt that if Chrysler survived, I could do pretty well," Jones said. "I could probably learn more in a crisis situation in a short amount of time than I could elsewhere at a company that was more comfortable."

 

"Our mission statement here a Focus: HOPE calls for intelligent and practical action to overcome racism, poverty and injustice," Jones said. "If we all work together to do that, imagine what a city that this would be."

 

WWJ Newsradio 950 celebrates Black History Month by recognizing our local young African American professionals and their heroes – you can hear these reports throughout the day: 6:20 a.m., 10:40 a.m., 3:40 p.m. and 7:40 p.m.

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