He participated in the band and choir at Decatur High before giving the oration at his 1929 graduation.  He worked nights for five years to finance his 1934 graduation from Millikin University, and then taught music and political science at all-Black schools before enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1942.  After the war he used the G.I. Bill to finance his law degree studies at the Univeristy of Chicago.  He then served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illlinois before being elected in 1960 as a judge  on the Superior Court of Cook County.  On nomination by President John F. Kennedy, on  September 23, 1961, Parsons was installed as the first Black to receive a lifetime federal judge appointment.  He went on to serve with great distinction until he retired in September 1992.

On February 26, 1967, Parsons returned to Decatur to attend the dedication of the new James B. Parsons Elementary School.  He called the honor “a full expression of affection from Illinois’ finest town.”  James Parsons died in Chicago at 81 years of age.