James A.R. Kinney

James A.R. Kinney was an African Nova Scotian accountant, community leader, and a co-founder of the Colored Hockey League.

Early history
James Alexander Ross Kinney was born on February 25, 1879, in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

Kinney joined the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church as a teenager. He rose to prominence in both the African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia (AUBA) and the African Nova Scotian community.

He was the first Black graduate of the Maritime Business College.

In 1895, in Halifax, he organized the Colored Hockey League with three other black Baptist leaders and intellectuals: Pastor James Borden, James Robinson Johnston, and Henry Sylvester Williams.

A home for Black orphans in Nova Scotia was proposed by James Robinson Johnston in 1908. Following the untimely death of Johnston on March 3, 1915, Kinney took over as the black community's lay minister and lead advocate for building the home. In 1918, he played a key role in fundraising for the construction of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children. Upon the Home's opening in 1921, he was named its first superintendent and manager.

Death
James A.R. Kinney died on November 6, 1940.