In Celebration of Black History Month: A Fireside Chat and Book Signing with Jimmie James

February 24, 2025 | Philadelphia | Duane Morris LLP, 12th Floor

In celebration of Black History Month, please join us for A Fireside Chat and Book Signing with Jimmie James, author of the best-selling autobiography, Playing from the Rough: A Personal Journey Through America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses. The event will be held on Monday, February 24, 2025, from 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

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Jimmie James

Born in 1959 to a single mother of eight in Jim Crow-era Texas, Jimmie James emerged from humble beginnings, growing up in a shack without electricity or plumbing. He was the first in his family not only to graduate from high school, but also to pursue and earn a college degree, graduating from Prairie View A&M University at the top of his engineering class. In his 33-year career with ExxonMobil, James rose from an entry-level engineer to a globe-trotting executive, overseeing businesses across the world. Now retired, he splits his time between Philadelphia and Kiawah Island, South Carolina, and enjoys golfing, travel, photography and chess. He and his wife, Erika, have two young-adult children, Jordan and Alexandra.

Opening Remarks

Matthew A. Taylor
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Duane Morris LLP

Moderator

Joseph K. West
Partner and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Duane Morris LLP

About Playing from the Rough

When he set out to play each of the Golf Digest America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses in one year, Jimmie James knew he was attempting the impossible. But then again, he’d spent his entire life defying the odds.

James was born invisible. His birth certificate, long since filed away in some clerk’s office in East Texas, recorded facts about him that were deemed most relevant in the late 1950s: “colored” and “illegitimate.” His great-great-grandmother was enslaved, and his early life was confined by the privation and segregation of the late Jim Crow-era South.

Four decades later—having put himself through an HBCU and determinedly risen through the executive ranks at ExxonMobil—he embarked on his journey to play the 100 greatest golf courses in the United States – in a single year. From the first tee at Augusta National, the distance between the world he grew up in and the world of extreme privilege to which he’d now managed to gain access was impossible to ignore.

Playing from the Rough is a remarkable memoir of race, class, family and the power of perseverance, as James braids his love of golf with reflections on the path that took him from childhood poverty to the most exclusive and opulent golf courses in America.

About the Duane Morris Diversity and Inclusion Program

Duane Morris manages its diversity and inclusion program with the objective of utilizing the best talent worldwide in solving legal problems. The firm recruits a diverse pool of lawyers and staff that collectively possess an awareness of cutting-edge 21st century issues—legal, social and economic—for which clients require solutions.