Flora Jones was born in 1953 in Delta City, Mississippi. Her family moved to Hollandale, Mississippi, in 1968, and Flora finished high school there in 1971. She helped work the cotton fields and pick tomatoes before finishing school, and then got a job at a carpet factory in Greenville after graduation. Jones attended Mississippi Valley State University for a year, got married in 1973, and moved to Chicago with her husband in 1977.