Swanson: UCLA’s Londynn Jones never sweats the ‘small’ stuff

LOS ANGELES — If you think UCLA women’s basketball standout Londynn Jones is formidable at her 5 feet, 4 inches tall, I’ve got to tell you about her great-great-grandmother, Mamie Kirkland.

Before her death at 111 in 2020, the 4-6 Kirkland was, as the Buffalo News put it this week, “a giant of Buffalo history.”

Dan Barry memorialized Kirkland in the New York Times, writing that “she was also the embodiment of the African-American experience of the 20th century,” detailing her experiences dealing with racial violence...