Johnnie A. Jones, Sr. is a former Louisiana state legislator, World War II D-Day veteran, former Warrant Officer with the all-African American 494th Port Battalion, and civil rights attorney associated with the 1953 Baton Rouge Bus Boycott, the first large-scale bus boycott challenging segregation in the 1950s in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Baton Rouge Boycott was a precursor to the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama.
Jones was the first ever African American warrant officer in U.S. Army history. In 2021, the U.S. Army awarded Jones the Purple Heart, 77 years after Jones was injured by shrapnel during the Allied's D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach during World War II. Earlier in 2021, the U.S. Department of the Army approved the award for both Jones and Ozzie Fletcher, a 99-year-old former private, who both had their war stories overlooked for decades, despite earning the medals at the historic Operation Overlord.
Jones served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1972 to 1976. Jones is a centenarian.