Addie Mae Collins

Retiring Alabama priest proud of 'radical' label

Now 82, James was driving through Birmingham when he heard an explosion. The young priest, returning to Mobile at the time, rushed toward the noise. Dynamite had ripped into the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

"People started pouring out," he recalls. "They were praying, screaming and crying."

He put on his priest's collar, parked and got out to help.

When the pastor of the church saw him, James recalls, the pastor said, "`Father, they're trying to kill us.'"

James did not know until later that day the full truth of that statement.

Four girls died in what would become an iconic event in the civil rights struggle-Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, all 14, and 11-year-old Denise McNair.

Being there, he says, deepened his commitment to standing up to injustice.

A native of Birmingham, James, who retires this month from St. Patrick's, entered the seminary at age 16. James has roots in Mobile's Civil Rights movement

In his 20s, he became a priest, and by the time he was in his 30s was deeply influenced by the Second Vatican Council that began in 1962 under Pope John XXIII.

"John XXIII," he says, "told people to open the window of the church and let fresh air in - to be involved with what we did."

"Vatican II," he says, "set me on fire."

The civil rights movement was in full sway.

In Mobile, he served as a priest at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, then at St. Francis Xavier in Toulminville, which was integrated during his time there.

In 1969, James joined protesters trying to picket America's Junior Miss pageant to publicize demands for what they argued was fairer treatment and employment of local blacks.

Along with John LeFlore, a Mobile civil rights leader, James was arrested.

"I was glad to be in jail," he says.

He looks back on that night as part of his life-long determination to speak out on causes.

There were consequences, he says. At the time he served as chaplain to the Mobile Police Department and was dismissed. And as he tells it, he was soon transferred out of Mobile - to St. Jude in Montgomery, a church with an African-American outreach.

Over the years he has organized numerous retreats for Catholic sisters, and is outspoken in his belief that women should have the same roles as men.

"I've done a couple of hundred retreats for nuns and see what wonderful priests they'd make," he says.

What did the KKK do with the Addie Mae's body? | Web design birmingham

Medical Apartheid was well-articulated and researched book, which all blacks must read including educators, doctors, nurses, and scientist. The book bought tears to my eyes because blacks today we are still being experimented on like lab rats and genocide secretly by our federal and state government thought medical, biological, and chemical research that are not design to save us medically. The abuse our ancestors and present day blacks have to endure by the hands of the oppressor (Private and Public institutions). The so-called “American forefather of Medicine” should have been executed or burned without going to trial for their inhumane acts perform blacks and humanity. Can you picture you go to move your deceased love from one cemetery to another better-groomed cemetery to unearth THE PLOT IS EMPTY. Addie Mae Collins, one of four young girls killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Birmingham, Alabama. Addie Mae Collin Family wanted to relocate Addie Mae’s grave due to the unacceptable condition of Greenwood Cemetery. When the crew went to dig up Addie Mae Collin the plot was empty (NO BODY OR COFFIN). The oppressor does not respect us when we are breathing or deceased!

I do have utmost respect for the doctors that are genuinely sincere about decrease black’s health issues. In addition, MS. Washington is right that black must “transform our attitudes toward medical research and to demand our place at the table to enjoy the rich bounty of the American Medical system in the form of longer, healthier lives.”

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/076791547X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm

John, stop making me laugh!

Birmingham, 1963

The martyrs, sixteen who gave their lives for racial justice

Jet

Medical Apartheid, The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

Terrorism on American soil, a concise history of plots and perpetrators from the famous to the forgotten