I know it's meaningless, but I get the impression that Jim was mixed race, from his light skin tone and features which didn't look 100 percent African (to me, though I am no expert and could of course be wrong
He looks like a black person with two black parents. His features look 100% black to me. He has kinky hair (afro), brown eyes, full lips, and a wide nose.
And black people come in diffent shades..light, medium, or dark. That doesn't mean they are mixed. Sure he might have some mixture down the line somewhere but that's for all blacks. White people also have some mixture of other races (including black blood) down the line as well.

African Americans (in fact most transplanted African-descended people) are descendants of slaves captured hundreds of years ago. In terms of complexion most of the slaves were either blue-black or very dark-brown skinned people. Their offspring would look like them unless one of offsprings parents was Caucasian16d0, Native American, Mexican/Central/South American, Asian, etc. Female slaves would often be treated as concubines by their masters but intermarriage and free-will inter-mixing would have occurred at times. So what jeffyoung1 said (70% of all) could easily be true as many African bloodlines were compromised extensively over the last 500 years. Jim for example could be a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th (etc.) generation mix.

I DOUBT IT!! I'M SURE HE WAS JUST A LIGHT SKIN BLACK MAN LIKE ME
PACKIN THE SAME 2 GUNS THAT I STUCK TO WIT ACCURATE AIM

He doesn't look mixed to me.

He's part kung-fu, part awesome. That's all you need to know.
R
.
I.
P
.
Mr. Kelly. Fly boy, fly

He's part kung-fu, part awesome. That's all you need to know.

No, there is no indication that he was mixed. He's Black. People of African descent can come in various skin complexions and different types of facial features, without having another other race in their bloodline. The continent of Africa is a great display of this.

I'm not being a troll here, but you answered your own question. It is meaningless. American black, or Afro-American, is not the same as African negro. I read one statistic, long ago, that claimed 70% of blacks in America had some amount of Caucasian genes. For Jim Kelly that was obvious, but as I said, meaningless. Jim Kelly considered himself black, just as any Afro-American. Disregarding his paler complexion, he would be considered black by anyone else. All that said and done, Jim Kelly, of course was a good-looking dude and if he had been born thirty years later, would be a more successful Hollywood star, ladies man, and sex symbol. Imagine him today in 2011 as a 27-year old man, with a shorter, in-style hairdo, and he would be an Afro-American version of Bruce Willis and George Clooney. The Hollywood taboo wall on interracial romance, while still existing, is much lower today so Jim Kelly could be a total ladies man.