MATTHEW J. PERRY JR.
(1921-2011)
Meet Matthew
The Honorable Matthew James Perry Jr. was born in Columbia, SC in 1921. Upon graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, he served in the United States Army, where he witnessed racial injustice between American troops, which provoked him to pursue a life of law. After graduating from South Carolina State College, he practiced law in Spartanburg before becoming chief counsel for the South Carolina Conference of Branches of the NAACP in 1961. His legal service was largely devoted to combatting racial inequality as he advocated for multiple African American plaintiffs who were discriminated against by South Carolina institutions, including Anne Newman (Newman v. Piggy Park Enterprises), Gloria Blackwell (Rackley v. Tri-County Hospital), and Harvey Gantt (first African American student at Clemson University). Upon seeing his success in integration, former President Gerald Ford
nominated him to be a judge on the United States Military Court of Appeals (for which he was the first African American from the Deep South to do so). Following this, former President Jimmy Carter nominated him to be a United States district judge for South Carolina (for which he was the first African American to do so). He died in 2011.
Matthew J. Perry Jr.'s South Carolina
Perry was born into a South Carolina populated by textile mills that were established in the upstate which drew people from farms to mills. WWI happened, followed by the Great Depression (causing agriculture to wane, along with an infestation of boll weevils) and the Great Migration. Jim Crow laws, racial segregation, and the KKK were rampant. South Carolina remained incredibly segregated as Perry practiced law. As the times changed, Perry saw palpable change in Civil Rights (being a major figure for the movement itself). In the later years of the century, he saw service industries such as tourism, education, and medical care grow rapidly within the state. Textile factories started to fade after 1970 with offshore movement of those jobs. The white majority of the state voted solidly Republican at the time of his death.
Above: Untitled from the series Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom by Lee Friedlander (1957), courtesy Yale University Art Library; Gift of Maria and Lee Friedlander, HON. 2004., https://artgallery.yale.edu/exhibitions/exhibition/let-us-march-lee-friedlander-and-prayer-pilgrimage-freedom
Gloria Blackwell
Above: Gloria Blackwell by Unknown, courtesy South Carolina African American History Calender; https://scafricanamerican.com/gloria-blackwell-rackley/
Gloria Blackwell, a notable civil rights advocate and activist, was born in Little Rock, SC, in 1927. Always interested in being a teacher, she obtained two degrees in education from Claflin College and South Carolina State University, respectively. In the 1950’s, Blackwell served as a recruiter for the NAACP and began attending peaceful protests for desegregation. A particularly notable case of hers was Rackley v. Tri-County Hospital, where she sat in the white section of the waiting room in Tri-County Hospital while waiting for her daughter to receive care, where she was defended by Perry (who advocated so aggressively for her that he was briefly jailed due to contempt of court). After being fired from her city’s white school board in retaliation for her having won the case against Tri-County, she sued the school board and won. In her later years, she served as a professor at Norfolk State University, American International University, Emory University, and Clark College. She died in 2010.
Newman v. Piggie-Park Enterprises (1968)
While there are many rather dramatic and exciting cases in Perry’s career, the Newman v. Piggy Park Enterprises case is one specifically of note. Maurice Bessinger, the Baptist head of the National Association for the Preservation of White People and the proprietor of Piggy Park Enterprises (a BBQ chain restaurant) refused to serve Anne Newman, an African American woman and a minister’s wife, who became Perry’s client. Bessinger claimed that the Civil Rights Act and the class action suit filed against him violated his freedom of religion (as he claimed his religious beliefs were the foundation for his opposition to integration). Perry successfully defended Newman, and the Supreme Court sided with the defense, advancing the cause for civil rights.
Above: Maurice's Piggie Park by Unknown (1964), courtesy Maurice's Piggie Park, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/a-barbecue-case-that-helped-the-cause-of-civil-rights/2016/08/01/cc5edcd8-5203-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html
Above: Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull (1786–1820), courtesy Yale University Art Library; transfer from Trumbull Collection (1832), https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/69
In the Stacks
Matthew James Perry Jr. by Alice Bernstein (African American Studies Center, 2013-03-15 )
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Matthew J. Perry: The Man, His Times, and His Legacy by Belinda F. Gergel and W. Lewis Burke
References
Civil Rights Movement, https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/civil-rights-movement/
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Gloria Rackley Blackwell, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/gloria-rackley-blackwell-41
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Justice Matthew Perry, https://scafricanamerican.com/honorees/justice-matthew-perry/
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Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 256 F. Supp. 941 (D.S.C. 1966), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/256/941/2349546/
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Perry, Matthew James, Jr., https://www.fjc.gov/node/1386261
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Perry, Matthew J., Jr., https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/perry-matthew-j-jr/
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The Gloria Rackley-Blackwell story, https://thetandd.com/article_356cbc9e-3e10-11e0-883e-001cc4c03286.html