Stoner's family ran a sight-seeing company on Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and in nearby Chattanooga. At age two, he contracted childhood polio, which impaired one of his legs and resulted in a lifelong limp. His father Jesse Benjamin Stoner Sr., died when he was five; his mother Minnie died when he was 17. Stoner admired segregationist politician Theodore G. Bilbo. He became active in white supremacist groups and traveled to Washington, D.C. to support Bilbo.
As a "roving white supremacist," Stoner, along with Connie Lynch, was present in Bogalusa, Louisiana in 1965, "with the same road show they used to inflame white mobs in St. Augustine during the summer of 1964. Standing on a platform in Bogalusa, Stoner said:
The nigger is not a human being. He is somewhere between the white man and the ape. We don't believe in tolerance. We don't believe in getting along with our enemy, and the nigger is our enemy. Every time a nigger gets a job, that's just one more job that you can't have. You notice the niggers are singing 'I Love Everybody.' They sure do love everybody, and especially our white women. What the nigger really wants is our white women.
Stoner ran for governor of Georgia in 1970. During the campaign, where he called himself the "candidate of love," he described Adolf Hitler as "too moderate," black people as an extension of the ape family, and Jews as "vipers of hell." The primary was won by civil rights supporter, and future President, Jimmy Carter. Stoner then ran for the United States Senate in 1972, finishing fifth in the Democratic Party primary with just over 40,000 votes. The nomination and election went to Sam Nunn. During his Senate campaign, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that television stations had to play his ads because of the fairness doctrine. His ads included the word "nigger." Stoner also ran for lieutenant governor in 1974 and the US Senate in 1980. His best showing was 73,000 votes in his campaign for lieutenant governor in 1974, when he sought to succeed Lester G. Maddox in Georgia's second- highest constitutional office. Maddox lost the gubernatorial nomination that year to former legislator George D. Busbee. In his 1974 campaign for lieutenant governor, Stoner placed signs on the Macon Transit Company buses, which Mayor Ronnie Thompson ordered to be removed. Stoner promptly went to federal court to secure the return of his paid signs under his First Amendment protection. He urged, tongue-in-cheek, Georgia blacks to support his nemesis, Thompson, for governor. Stoner polled more votes for lieutenant governor than were cast for all four candidates in the Republican gubernatorial primary, which Thompson had only barely won. In 1978, Stoner ran in the Democratic gubernatorial primary and polled 37,654 votes.
Stoner was a suspect of the 1958 bombing of the Bethel Baptist Church, but was not indicted until 1977. A mostly white jury found him guilty in 1980, and sentenced him to ten years. Stoner was suspected by prosecutors of as many as a dozen other bombings, but was not prosecuted. After his conviction, Stoner appealed for three years, and when his appeals ran out, he lived in hiding as a fugitive for four months. In 1984, he was permanently removed from the roster of lawyers who may appear before the United States Supreme Court. Stoner was released from prison in 1986 for good behavior, having served 3 1/2 years of his sentence. Stoner ran again for lieutenant governor in 1990.
Later life
After his release from prison and until his death at 81, Stoner lived in northwest Georgia at a nursing home, still defending his segregationist views. In one of his last interviews he stated, "A person isn't supposed to apologize for being right." His left side was partially paralyzed as the result of a stroke. Stoner is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Stoner, J.B. & Erwin Saul. Interview with Sarah Kessler. J.B. Stoner and Erwin Saul comment on recent violence by the National States' Rights Party and similar organizations. Date unknown..
