Early Life and Education
James Earl Chaney was born in Meridian, Mississippi, the oldest son of Fannie Lee and Ben Chaney, Sr. His brother Ben was nine years younger, born in 1952, and he had three sisters, Barbara, Janice and Julia. His parents separated for a time when James was young.
James attended Catholic school for the first nine grades. At the age of 15 in high school, he and other students starting wearing paper patches reading "NAACP", to mark their support for the national civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1910. They were suspended for a week from the segregated high school, because the principal feared the reaction of the all-white school board.
After high school, Chaney started as an apprentice in a trade union with his father.
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