Jones was the first woman president of the National Medical Association and a founding member of the Association of Black Cardiologists. She was honored by many awards, including induction into both the University of Arkansas College of Medicine Hall of Fame and the inaugural group of women inducted into the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame.
Edith Mae Irby was born on December 23, 1927, near Conway in Faulkner County, Arkansas, to Mattie (née Buice) and Robert Irby. Her childhood was difficult: at the age of eight, she lost her father; an older sister died at 12 years of age from typhoid fever; and Irby herself suffered from rheumatic fever as a child. These events inspired her desire to help those who were underserved and impoverished and catalyzed her toward a career in medicine. Her mother relocated the family to Hot Springs, where Irby graduated in 1944 from Langston Secondary School (named for leader John Mercer Langston).
After winning a scholarship to Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tennessee, she studied chemistry, biology and physics. Irby believed she had an important role and obligation to the black community. One of her teachers had helped her attain the scholarship, members of the local African-American community collected change, and the black press ran a campaign in the Arkansas State Press to raise funds that they donated to her for her tuition and living expenses. During her schooling, she secretly made trips with teams from the NAACP to recruit members for the organization. She graduated with her BS from Knoxville College in 1948 and completed a graduate course at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois to prepare for Medical School.

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