The youngest of five children, Robert Emmett Jones Jr. was born to Robert Emmett Jones and Augusta Smith Jones on June 12, 1912 in Scottsboro, Alabama in Jacksonville County.

Jones attended the University of Alabama School of Law, graduating on January 7, 1937, and he was admitted to the bar that same year. In 1938, he married Christine Francis Jones, with whom he would have a son.

Jones had already established a career of service before he even entered Congress, working as a lawyer until 1940, presiding as a judge in Jacksonville County until 1946, and serving as a gunnery officer in the Navy from 1943 to 1946.

In 1947, Jones ran as a Democrat in the special election for John J. Sparkman’s vacated Senate and won, thus beginning his Congressional career, one that would span three decades and fourteen consecutive terms. During his tenure, Jones proved himself an ally of public works, coauthoring the Accelerated Public Works Act in 1949, throwing his support behind the Housing Act of 1949 and its renewal in 1962, coauthoring the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, and authoring a 1959 amendment to the 1933 Tennessee Valley Authority Act. Jones sponsored the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965, and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972.

Jones also served on the National Commission on Water Quality as its vice chairman in 1976 and the House Public Works and Transportation Committee from 1976 to 1977 as its chair. Outside of his Congressional affiliations, Jones was a member of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Rotary Foundation.

While Jones supported public works, he notably opposed key pieces of civil rights-related legislation, having signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto and voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964.

Jones retired from Congress in 1977, not seeking reelection for the following term. In 1984, the Alabama legislature passed a resolution that expressed Alabama’s gratitude for Jones' service. The Bob Jones High School in Madison County, Bob Jones Avenue in Scottsboro County, and the Bob Jones Bridge were all named in his honor. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan put his signature on a resolution that named part of Alabama’s Corridor V after Jones.

Jones passed away on June 4, 1997 in Florence, Alabama at the age of 84. He was laid to rest in Cedar Hill in Scottsboro.