Morris Francis Xavier Jeff Jr. was like his namesake. Both were dedicated to making Black children’s lives better.

The elder Jeff focused on providing recreational and educational programs for Black children. Jeff Jr. spoke out against transracial adoption, believing that “Black people can and must care for Black children.”
Born in New Orleans in 1938, Jeff Jr. was a social worker, therapist, advocate, trainer, activist, consultant and licensed clinician. He received a bachelor’s degree from Xavier University, a master’s degree in social work from Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta) and a Ph.D. in social work from Tulane University.
Jeff Jr. was a caseworker with the Children’s Division of the Cook County Department of Public Aid in Chicago. He moved to Louisville, Ky., in 1965 to work as the project director at the Presbyterian Community Center. A year later, he became the director of the Plymouth Settlement House, formed in 1917 to serve Louisville’s Black community.
According to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, Jeff Jr. said: “In the years since I have been here, Plymouth Settlement House has become seen as an agency that is competent and committed to the needs of serving Black people. We are the only settlement house established by Black people for Black people.”
He worked at the house until 1972.
Described as someone who “spoke with clarity on urban problems and solutions using an African philosophical approach,” Jeff Jr. appeared on several national news programs as an expert on such topics as transracial adoption, Black-on-Black violence, welfare reform and the Middle Passage.
Jeff Jr., who died in 2003, “championed the many unpopular issues within society while challenging those around him to join in those struggles,” the commission wrote. He “was a true believer of the need for preserving and advancing African American families.”
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.