James Groppi
| Father James Groppi | |
|---|---|
| Born |
James Edmund Groppi November 16, 1930 Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Died | November 4, 1985 (aged 54) Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Resting place | Mount Olivet Cemetery Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Occupation | civil rights activist, community organizer, priest |
Father James Edmund Groppi (November 16, 1930 – November 4, 1985) was a Roman Catholic priest and noted civil rights activist based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
James Groppi was born in the Bay View neighborhood on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Italian immigrant parents. Giocondo and Giorgina Groppi had twelve children, of which James was the eleventh. In this working-class community, Giocondo joined others from Italy in Milwaukee's grocery business, opening "Groppi's" store in Bay View, where James and his siblings worked. Typical of boys in heavily Catholic south side Milwaukee, James attended a parochial grade school (Immaculate Conception), but went on to the public high school in Bay View, where he was captain of the basketball team in his senior year.
A year after graduation, James Groppi enrolled at Mount Calvary Seminary (1950–1952) in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin. According to writer Frank Aukofer, "It was during his seminary years that Father Groppi began developing an empathy with the black poor. He worked summers at a youth center in Milwaukee's inner core. It was there that he saw the social suffering and ostracism that Negroes lived with every day" (p. 90). Groppi was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood in June 1959 after studying at St. Francis Seminary (1952–1959).
At first assigned to St. Veronica's Church in Milwaukee, in 1963 Groppi was transferred to St. Boniface, the latter parish having a predominantly African-American congregation. Groppi became interested in – and active in – the cause of civil rights for Africans Americans, participating in the 1963 March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 on behalf of the Voting Rights Act. He also participated in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference voter registration project in the South, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., during the summer of 1965.
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