African-American police officer and activist James Stafford Griffin was born July 6, 1917, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jimmy, as he was called, was raised in Rondo, the city's largely Black neighborhood. He was the son of railroad dining car waiter William Griffin and Loretta Waters Griffin, both from Paris, Kentucky. 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. They had three daughters. He returned to St. Paul, joined their police department in 1941, and retired in 1983.While on the St. Paul police force, Griffin advanced from beat cop to deputy chief. He was the city's first Black sergeant in 1955, the first Black captain in 1970 and, in 1972, the first to make deputy chief. In the 1950s and 1960s, Griffin traveled throughout Minnesota refereeing small-college and high school football and basketball games. He was the first Black person seen in some towns. He was always conscious of the presence of racism in Minnesota; he chose to fight it mostly by trying to bridge differences, sometimes irritating people who had less patience.
Griffin and his wife established a scholarship in her name at Central, and Griffin gave a gift to people who contributed to the scholarship fund: a copy of his autobiography, Jimmy Griffin: A Son of Rondo. Jimmy Griffin died on November 23, 2002, in St. Paul.