American ecclesiastic, a Roman Catholic priest and social activist. He was arrested seven times and jailed on several occasions for leading demonstrations against injustice in the turbulent 60s. He led more than 200 marches for open housing, and others for Civil Rights.
A child of the Italian ghetto, Groppi was one of 12 kids born to Italian immigrants. He became an associate pastor at St. Boniface in Milwaukee. Committed to civil rights, he joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr on the march to Selma, AL. Activism appealed to him and he followed the march by organizing a civil rights campaign centered on equal housing and education for his predominantly black parishioners. Within three months, he was arrested for the first time. From 1966 to 1969 Groppi took part in dozens of demonstrations that eventually led to passage of fair housing laws in most Wisconsin cities. He and a thousand followers took over the Wisconsin State Assembly in Madison in a sit-down protest that once more put him behind bars.
The slender, bespectacled Groppi spent the early ’70s protesting Vietnam and the draft and in 1975 joined Marlon Brando as a negotiator between police and armed Indians.
In April, 1976 he formally broke with the Church as he had been censured for his activities. He married that same year; he and his wife had two daughters and a son. He drove a taxi and then a bus.
In December 1984, Groppi had surgery for a brain tumor, and had since been partially paralyzed and in a wheel chair. He died 11/04/1985, Milwaukee, WI.
Link to Wikipedia biography