Capt. James Paul (USAF Ret.) Died Today
- Donald V. Watkins
- Sep 28, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 25, 2025
By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on September 28, 2025
A distinguished American died today. His name is James Paul. I knew him as Capt. James Paul, United States Air Force. I always called him Capt. Paul.
I first met Capt. Paul, a Tuskegee University graduate and commissioned Air Force officer, when my former wife DeAndra and I moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama in August 1970 to start my participation in the NAACP's campaign to desegregate the University of Alabama’s law school. Capt. Paul, his wife Al’Verita, and daughter Karen arrived on campus at the same time. So did Moses and Lena Prewitt, together with their son Kenneth. Dr. Lena Prewitt was the first African American female professor hired by the University.
All three couples lived in the Rose Towers residential apartments on campus.
Capt. Paul was desegregating his graduate school classes. I was desegregating my law school classes, along with Miles College graduate George Jones. Lena was desegregating the ranks of university professors.
Our desegregation missions, coupled with the daily grind of "in-your-face" white racism on campus, brought us closer together. We formed an extremely tight friendship bond with each other that lasted a lifetime.
I looked up to Capt. Paul because he was three years older than me, he had a commanding presence about himself, he was a Tuskegee University graduate, he was confident in his mission, he had a backbone of steel, and he was supersmart.
Capt. Paul was from Brewton, Alabama. He attended the Southern Normal School, the oldest historically black private boarding school in America. In 1997, the school became known as the Southern Normal Academy of Alabama State University. Even though the Academy closed in 2015, Alabama State still owns the valuable 378-acre, timber-rich, Southern Normal School campus.
Capt. James Paul and Moses Prewitt, who worked as Director of Alumni Affairs at Stillman College, were my two best friends during my three years in law school. Those years, from 1970 to 1973, were the longest and loneliest three years of my life.
Moses, Capt. Paul, and I leaned on each other daily as a source of strength to get through the thick, nasty, and undiluted white racism on campus. We socialized on Stillman’s campus across town because it was a safe environment for the small group of black UA graduate and law school students.
Throughout our ordeal, Capt. James Paul was a consummate leader, a great friend, an unselfish protector, and a first-class military officer. I credit Capt. Paul's Air Force officer's training for helping us to hold it all together under the most difficult of circumstances. Because of Capt. Paul, all of us made it to the other side of midnight with our sanity intact, our heads held high, and our credentials in order.
Moses Prewitt died on February 15, 2010, at 75.
Dr. Lena Prewitt died on February 14, 2024, at age 92.
Capt. James Paul died peacefully in his suburban community near Los Angeles, California, at age 80.
DeAndra and I will miss Capt. James Paul, always and forever! It is up to us to safeguard Capt. Paul's legacy and his rightful place in American history.
Mr. Watkins
Thank you for sharing such a meaningful tribute—a reminder that those times are not as far away as they may seem—folks like yourself, Mom, Dad, and Capt. Paul shows how challenges can be met through perseverance, dedication, belief, and a commitment to the common good through justice, fairness, and, frankly, just giving a damn about what is right.
You also emphasize a point too often overlooked today: the idea of community. A community that stands together in work and in rest, in rain or shine, in sorrow and in joy. A community that you and others helped build during difficult times in a rugged land, for the success of others.
I hope history remembers not only the details…
For Capt. James Paul!
Capt. James Paul -- always leading, always protecting, and always a hero.
Dr. Lena Burrell Prewitt was my only Black professor at Stillman College. Her husband, Moses was either a graduate and still at Stillman. She was a Stillman graduate who earned her Doctorate at Indiana University. She is the reason I decided to go to Indiana for my graduate degree in Counseling and Psychology. She was brilliant. I think Moses, a Tuscaloosa native graduated with my sister, Mable. They were our friends.
Capt. Paul was aware of the critical role Mr. Ramus Rhodes played in my life during my law school years. Mr. Rhodes, who was the custodian at Farrah Hall, was my friend, mentor, guidance counsel, shrink, light in the darkness when things were unbearable, de facto law professor, and guardian inside the law school building. Because UA made Mr. Rhodes and other black custodians wear a uniform on campus, Capt. Paul always greeted him with a salute.
Capt. Paul told me to never allow any student to disrespect Mr. Rhodes in my presence. The way he said it, I could tell that Capt. Paul meant it.
One day during a freshman assembly, a rowdy white student stood up…