Jones enrolled at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963, following Governor George Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door." Wallace stepped aside following a confrontation with U.S. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, representing President John F. Kennedy. Despite tension surrounding Wallace's stand, Jones and fellow African-American student James Hood entered the University without violence.
Jones graduated in 1965 with a management degree, the first African American graduate of the university. She served as a research analyst for the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division in Washington and later transferred to the Veterans Administration as an employee relations specialist. She also served on the President's Council on Youth Opportunity.
Jones was appointed as director of the Civil Rights and Urban Affairs Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Atlanta Regional Office. She later became the first female chief executive officer of the Atlanta-based non-profit Voter Education Project. Jones retired from the EPA as director of the Office of Environmental Justice. She joined the Atlanta Associates of MONY Life Insurance Company of America in 1996.
She serves on the board of directors of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, and is a member of the National Council of Negro Women and Leadership Atlanta Alumni Association. In addition, Jones has led fundraising efforts for the United Negro College Fund and has served as chairperson of the Leadership Action Forum for the National Council of Negro Women's Black Family Reunion Project.
The University of Alabama honored Jones as one of its "31 most outstanding women graduates," and has also endowed the Vivian Malone Jones Scholarship.
In 1996, Jones was the first recipient of the George Wallace Foundation's Lurleen B. Wallace Award of Courage. She has also received the NAACP Emancipation Day Award, and the Environmental Protection Agency Silver Medal.
