Ivan C. James, Jr.

Ivan C. James, Jr. (1916–2014) was an American engineer and historian in St. Louis.

Personal life Ivan Cecil James, Jr. was born on May 23, 1916, in Nashville, Tennessee, to Ivan C. James and Lottie B. James. He attended West Bell School, Sumner High School, Lincoln University, and the Milwaukee School of Engineering. On January 29, 1941, the couple were married in a religious ceremony at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church.

James died on October 9, 2014, at the age of 98, and was buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. Career James was hired by Emerson Electric, where he ran a punch press. As James recounted in Lift Every Voice and Sing, he was the first African-American hired by the company "for any job other than porter." Many of the items James collected document the history of African-American Catholics in St. Louis.

James was the author of The History of Black Catholicism in St. Louis, a short study of African-Americans' Catholic heritage in the city, from the original settlement of St. Louis through the civil rights activism and segregationist resistance of the twentieth century. James described population shifts and the evolution of particular hubs of African-American Catholic life, such as St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, which closed in 1950.