James Edwin Coyle (1873-1921) was a Catholic priest who was pastor of St. Paul's Catholic Church in Birmingham, Jefferson County. He was murdered by a Klansman for performing a marriage ceremony between the Klansman's daughter and a man of Puerto Rican descent. Coyle's murder and the subsequent trial, in which the murderer was acquitted, highlighted the virulent anti-Catholic and white supremacist views held by the majority of Birmingham's white population.
