Black spent the first years of his life in the Calton district of Glasgow before his family moved to Tollcross where he received his primary education at St Joseph's school.
In April 1917, along with several of his fellow students, he left the seminary to enlist in the Royal Munster Fusiliers at Tralee in County Kerry, Ireland.
Thereafter, in June 1941, he was removed to St Charles Borromeo parish in Paisley where his tenure was a brief six months before being appointed as chaplain to Notre Dame College for the training of teachers in Glasgow where, in addition to his pastoral duties, he also taught history and ethics.
Upon the establishment of the new diocese of Paisley, Monsignor James Black was appointed as its first bishop by Pope Pius XII on 28 February 1948 and was consecrated by Archbishop Donald Campbell in St Mirin's Cathedral on 14 April of the same year.
The last few years of Bishop Black's episcopate were dogged by ill health and, in March 1968, after some months of confinement, he died in office at age 73 in Kilmacolm.