Prieur Higginbotham, Jr.

PRIEUR JAY HIGGINBOTHAM, JR

July 16, 1937-June 20, 2017

Jay Higginbotham, age 79, historian, novelist, activist, and longtime resident of Mobile, Alabama, died on June 20, 2017 in Mobile of pneumonia and complications from Parkinson's Disease. The eldest son of the late Prieur Jay and Vivian Inez Perez Higginbotham of Pascagoula, Mississippi, Mr. Higginbotham is survived by his sister, Mary Kay (John W.) Parrish, of Shawnee, Oklahoma; brother, Richard Dale (Linda Lilley) Higginbotham, of Natchitoches, Louisiana; three children, Jeanne Félicie Mercier of Asheville, North Carolina; Denis Martin (Nina Billone) Prieur of Washington, DC; and Robert Findlay (Yuliya Zavinska) Higginbotham of Hoboken, New Jersey; grandson, Carson Maxwell Taylor, of Mobile; granddaughters, Louisa Margaret and Rosa Vivian Prieur; great-grandson, Cristian Bennett Taylor; other relatives and friends.
Born in Pascagoula on July 16, 1937, Mr. Higginbotham played football and track at Pascagoula High and graduated in 1960 from the University of Mississippi with a degree in history. He worked and studied in New York City and Washington, DC before moving to Mobile in 1962 to teach public school, using summer vacations to travel across Europe, the Middle East, and the Soviet Union.
In 1970, he married Alice Louisa Martin of Montgomery, with whom he had three children. After teaching at Toulminville and Vigor High Schools he joined the Mobile Public Library, eventually becoming the head of the Local History Division before being tapped to establish the Mobile Municipal Archives in 1983, where he was the director until he retired in 2001.
Mr. Higginbotham was one of the most foremost authorities on the history of the Gulf Coast, and his prolific writing career began with academic and popular histories of the region, including the award-winning Old Mobile. His later work included novels, plays, and memoirs. His novel Brother Holyfield told the tragic story of a doubting Baptist preacher, while the memoir Fast Train Russia detailed his journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1963. A mainstay of Mobile's literary scene, he helped found the Mobile Association of Sages and Savants, which brought Allen Ginsberg and Yevgeny Yevtushenko to Mobile, and held poetry readings for many years.
Mr. Higginbotham was a fierce activist for peace and social justice, organizing anti-nuclear demonstrations in the 1980s and working against the embargo against Cuba since the 1990s. He helped establish a Sister Cities relationship with then-USSR's Rostov-on-Don, and later started the Society Mobile-L'Habana, which sponsored cultural exchanges between the two cities. He also helped establish the Founders of Old Mobile Society, was the initial chair of the Mobile Tricentennial Committee, a longstanding member of the League of Women Voters, and a famously avid blood donor.
A funeral service will be held at Dauphin Way United Methodist Church at 1507 Dauphin Street on Friday, June 23, 2017 at 12:00 Noon, with a visitation preceding at 11:00 AM. A reception will follow at the Collier residence at 1551 Dauphin Street. Condolences may be offered at www.mobilememorialfunerals.com.
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Visitation

Dauphin Way United Methodist Church
1507 Dauphin Street
Mobile, AL  36604
Friday, June 23, 2017
11 - 12:00 Noon

Service

Funeral Service

Dauphin Way United Methodist Church
1507 Dauphin Street
Mobile, AL  36604
Friday, June 23, 2017
12:00 Noon

Cemetery

Mobile Memorial Gardens
6100 Three-Notch Road
Mobile, AL  36619