People, Locations, Episodes

Fri, 07.06.1917

Jimmy Griffin, Police Officer, and Community Activist born

*Jimmy Griffin was born on this date in 1917. He was a Black police officer and community activist.

James Stafford Griffin was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and raised in the Rondo Community. He was the son of William Griffin and Loretta Waters Griffin, who were from Paris, Kentucky. His father was a waiter on a railroad dining car. Young Griffin was kicked off the basketball team at Central High School because of poor grades, but he graduated and attended college for two years in West Virginia, where he met his wife, Edna.

He returned to St. Paul, joined their police department in 1941, and retired in 1983.  While on the St. Paul police force, he advanced from beat cop to deputy chief.  He was the city's first Black police sergeant in 1955, the first Black captain in 1970, and, in 1972, the first to become deputy chief — but he had to sue the city to get that job despite a top score on the examination.

In the 1950s and '60s, Griffin also traveled throughout Minnesota, refereeing small-college and high school football and basketball games. He was the first Black person seen in some towns. Griffin said when he was interviewed in recent years that he was always conscious of racism in Minnesota. He fought it mostly by trying to bridge differences, sometimes irritating people with less patience.

He had three daughters and five grandchildren.  Griffin and his wife established a scholarship in his daughter Vianne's name at Central. He shared a gift for people who contributed to the scholarship fund: a copy of his published autobiography, "Jimmy Griffin: A Son of Rondo."   Jimmy Griffin died on November 23, 2002, in St. Paul.

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