Fred Jones Jr. (born January 2, 1948) is an American entrepreneur, entertainment producer and founder of the

Southern Heritage Classic The Southern Heritage Classic presented by FedEx is an annual historically black college football game between the Golden Lions of University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) and the Braves of Alcorn State University. UAPB replaced Jackson ...

, which is an annual

HBCU Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of serving African Americans. Most are in the Southern U ...

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

game in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...

Early years

Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee to Lula Mae, a homemaker, and Freddie Jones, a dockworker at the St. Louis terminal dock in Memphis. He was raised in the Cleaborn Homes housing community in south Memphis. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1966. He worked during the day as an auditor at Union Planters National Bank beginning in 1968 and went to college at night to earn his BBA degree in finance (minoring in accounting) from

Memphis State University The University of Memphis (Memphis) is a public university, public research university in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, the university has an enrollment of more than 20,000 students. The university maintains the Herff Col ...

in 1971. While at Union Planters, he was transferred to the Bellevue branch in 1970 where it just so happened that Stax Records did its banking. That is where he got his introduction into the music industry. He would attend shows by David Porter and The Soul Children and, backed by his banking background, led to becoming a de facto road manager. That eventually led to a similar job working with soul legend

Isaac Hayes Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American singer, songwriter, composer, and actor. He was one of the creative forces behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records in the 1960s, serving as an in-house songwr ...

in 1971. Hayes was searching for someone to "count money."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Fred Jr. 1948 births Living people Businesspeople from Memphis, Tennessee University of Memphis alumni