Dewey Roscoe Jones was born on September 2, 1899, in Ashville, North Carolina. Jones became the first Black Assistant Director at Hull-House, one of the many roles and contributions he made for the betterment of his community.  When Jones was three his mother moved him and his sister to Muskogee, Oklahoma where he would attend school until he graduated from the Manual Training High School at the age of 16. After serving in the U.S. Navy, Jones received a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Michigan in 1922. Jones later received a Master of Science in Journalism in 1932 from Columbia University.

Jones moved to Chicago in 1923 and became a reporter for the Chicago Defender, a leading black-owned weekly newspaper that encourage Black people to leave the violence in the American South and move to northern urban centers like Chicago. Jones was promoted to City Editor and later Managing Editor. Jones is most well-known to Chicago readers as the manager of the poetry column "Lights and Shadows."

In 1928, Jones married Faith Jefferson. Faith would later become a well-regarded social worker in Chicago. In 1935, Jones left the Chicago Defender to become the Associate Acting Advisor on Negro Affairs in the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works in the U.S Department of the Interior. He would also go on to serve as an advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a member of the "Black Cabinet", a term coined by fellow member Mary McLeod Bethune.

Jones moved back to Chicago in 1938 to become the Assistant Director of Hull-House. Jones was openly critical of Hull-House’s lack of outreach towards the Black community in the 19th Ward. These critiques led to Jones being granted a Julius Rosenwald fellowship, which funded a study to uncover the social and economic needs of the West Side. Near the end of writing his report, Jones passed away on April 10, 1939, at 39.