♪ What did I do ♪ ♪ to be so ♪ black and blue?

♪ Jim Welch> The segregated South of the 1920s, a time of inequality and injustice, a time when the law subjected Blacks to degrading and shameful situations.

With resignation, some Blacks humbly accepted the fact that they were labeled inferior and could never enjoy the privileges that came with being White.

But there were others who could not accept this fate.

They believed and fought for what was morally just, and they won... such men as Matthew Perry.

This was the South that he grew up in.

These were the circumstances that influenced his life and led him to emerge as one of the leading figures in the struggle for equal rights in South Carolina.

Today, he has been appointed judge of the United States Court of Military Appeals in Washington, becoming the first Black from the Deep South to attain such honor.

♪ ♪ Matthew Perry was born in Columbia on August 3, 1921, and lived in this house on Washington Street.

His father, a tailor, passed away when Perry was only 12.

He was educated in Columbia public schools and graduated from Booker T. Washington in 1939.

Following graduation, he enrolled in South Carolina State College seeking a degree in business administration.

But his education was interrupted when he was called to serve in the Army during the crisis of nations, World War II.

This was a time of commitment, dedication, and loyalty.

For Matthew Perry, who was serving his country in a segregated quartermaster company, it was a time of realization.

Blacks were being denied their full rights as American citizens.

He returned home in 1946 and resumed his education at State College.

He also made one of the most important decisions in his life, he would become an attorney.

Judge Perry> As a young man, as a boy, growing up in South Carolina, I think I developed a sense of... the unfairness, the existence of many problems in our communities in South Carolina.

And I wasn't really sure that anything could be done about them, but I think early in my life I decided I wanted to try and do, something about alleviating some of the problems.

Later, I guess I came to feel that the law offered an opportunity for some fulfillment and also an opportunity for me to be of some service to mankind.

Jim> What did you hope to accomplish by becoming an attorney?

Judge Perry> I think it was either late in 1946- yes, it was late in 1946 when... two cases were handled in Columbia.

They were the cases that involved the effort of George Elmore, a Black man who wanted to register and vote in South Carolina.

You know, of course, prior to 1946, Black citizens of South Carolina were not able to register and vote in the Democratic Primary, which, of course, was the only meaningful election at that time.

Thurgood Marshall, now a justice on the United States Supreme Court, came to South Carolina and argued that case.

I attended it and observed Justice Marshall, then a top lawyer for the NAACP, handle that case.

I liked what I saw, I liked the way the system seemed to respond to this great lawyer's efforts, and I decided that I'd like to try that.

Jim> Perry received his bachelor of science degree in business administration and entered South Carolina State Law School.

At this time, he met and fell in love with the former Hallie Bacote of Timmonsville, who was working on her degree in home economics and education.

They were married in 1949.

In 1951, he graduated from law school, a school that was formed because Black students were denied entrance to USC's law school.

Lawyers such as Matthew Perry emerged from State and went on to break the barriers of segregation in South Carolina.

He moved to Spartanburg, established his law firm, and began a long road toward the advancement of human rights.

What was it like for a Black lawyer in the '50s?

Judge Perry> The situation in South Carolina and throughout America was, of course, that of institutionalized racial segregation.

All of our institutions in South Carolina were segregated by law at that time.

Our public schools were racially segregated.

Blacks were only allowed to attend South Carolina State College at Orangeburg.

That's the school I attended.

Yet, of course, the vast majority of the public's money was being expended towards the maintenance and building of the University of South Carolina, Clemson, the Medical University at Charleston, the Citadel, Winthrop, and, of course, Blacks were not admitted to those schools.

And not only were our public institutions- that is to say, all state-owned facilities, educational, recreational, and whatnot- but all of our private institutions were likewise segregated.

In fact, of course, in racial terms, why, our state was pretty much divided.

East was east and west was west in racial terms so that ne'er the twain should ever meet.

Jim> He also became associated with the NAACP on a local level.

As a member, his efforts were aimed at building awareness and getting more people to join.

Reverend McCollom, how did Matthew Perry become involved with the NAACP, the first reference that you know of?

> Well, one would suppose that his being a lawyer and his facing or recognizing an opportunity in the civil rights movement to be of service, as well as to get himself involved and build up a practice in law, that this is the way that he got started.

Actually, up to the time of the sit-ins, maybe a year or two before, we had no continuing need for a single attorney.

In isolated places, of course, there would be a need.

Somebody would come up with a case where an individual found himself in difficulty with some entity which evoked a civil rights situation.

But Matt came to prominence and to high visibility after the sit-ins began.

I recall that here in Orangeburg, when the 388 students got locked up, he found himself in court the next morning arguing constitutional law with a magistrate who had perhaps never addressed himself to constitutional law before.

One was arguing misdemeanor, the other was arguing the Constitution, and it was really quite a thing to see.

Jim> This was the Claflin College case?

Rev.

McCollom> Claflin and State College students.

They were always involved together in their demonstrations.

Nobody ever stopped to count how many there would be from either school.

They were all caught up in the same movement.

Jim> What would you consider one of the most crucial things Matthew Perry has done for the NAACP on the national level?

Rev.

McCollom> Well, on a national level, I would think that it would be his acting for a period as the national counsel.

He was the legal staff for the national office for a period during which there was a labor union dispute between our national legal staff and our national administration.

That is, Roy Wilkins and the national board.

They had this labor dispute because members of the lawyers there belonged to some lawyers guild, which amounts to a union, and there came this dispute.

I don't know whether the national board suspended them or whether they, in effect, struck.

But for a while there was nobody in charge of our legal office, and so Matt Perry was called upon to come to New York and take over.

And he did.

He was, for all practical purposes, the legal counsel for the national office for that period, a matter of months.

Jim> In 1961, Perry returned to his native Columbia and formed the law firm of Jenkins and Perry.

He also became chief legal counsel for the South Carolina NAACP and started the battle toward the desegregation of public schools.

Judge Perry, The Supreme Court declared that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional in 1954 in the "Brown versus the Board of Education Case" Topeka, Kansas.

Was South Carolina involved with desegregation cases at that time?

Judge Perry> Yes.

One of the five cases that the Supreme Court decided on May 17, 1954, was a case from South Carolina called "Briggs versus Elliot."

If you just look at the "Brown versus Board of Education" decision, you'll find that "Brown versus Board" from Topeka, Kansas, was merely the first listed case.

"Briggs versus Elliot" was one of those five cases.

Jim> Why do you feel it was chosen as an example?

Was it that horrible?

Judge Perry> Oh, it was.

It was, of course, a system that perhaps evidenced all of the adverse consequences of racial segregation.

The people of that county were pouring all of their money into the White schools, and the Black schools left much to be desired in terms of the physical facility, and, indeed, in terms of the quality of education that was imparted in the schools.

Jim> One by one, he fought cases that broke racial barriers in schools throughout the state.

Every case became a crusade.

But his most monumental victories came in 1962 with "Gantt versus Clemson College," which resulted in the first admission of a Black to Clemson College.

"Monteith versus the University of South Carolina" followed, which forced desegregation of the state's largest university.

Judge Perry> We had to work very hard.

I and my fellow attorneys worked night and day, and of course the demands on us were considerable.

Now, of course, the public reaction to us was rather decided- that is to say, some members of the public.

There were some people who telephoned my home and made threats, in some instances directly to me.

In other instances, they made insulting and threatening remarks to my wife.

> We received many calls at the time.

My son was about six months old at the time, and I was working.

And we received calls from KKK and different other places, and the people would not say anything but, "This is the KK calling."

So, one day, I was at school, and the lady who was taking care of Michael received a call saying that the KK called, and I rushed home from school and changed the telephone.

In fact, I unlisted the telephone.

My husband was away, and he tried to get us.

He was all furious because the telephone was unlisted and the operator couldn't give the number.

After that, I just notified the police department.

Of course, it was much better after that.

They would kind of look out for the house where we were living, and that sort of thing.

Judge Perry> You have to bear in mind that... what the officials, Chief Strom and others were doing in terms of affording my family and I the personal protection that I can now talk about... might not have been received in the understanding terms and with the appreciation then that I suspect people would accord that now.

Jim> Then came the protests of the '60s.

The sit-ins, the marches, and demonstrations by students who were fighting to exercise their rights as citizens.

It was the era of Martin Luther King, who brought forth a national consciousness for equality and advocated peace.

But turmoil and violence erupted on campuses across the country, and South Carolina was no exception.

At State College, three students were killed by the highway patrol during demonstration activities.

The case became nationally known as the Orangeburg Massacre, and Matthew Perry was called upon to represent the parents of the dead students.

He proceeded to bring criminal charges against the officers involved, but lost.

Judge Perry> We always felt, and we claimed in the lawsuit, that the shooting of the students was unnecessary, and this is why the suits were brought.

Jim> At the same time perhaps, didn't you feel it would be a futile attempt?

Judge Perry> Well, looking at it one way, I suppose you could say that because it's not an easy thing ever to win a case against a law enforcement officer who claims that, whatever he did, he did it while acting properly and while in the enforcement of the law.

Juries are very loathed to return verdicts against law enforcement officers in that kind of case.

Yet we had to do what we did.

You have to understand that there is possibly nothing that has happened within my lifetime in South Carolina that offended the entire Black community like the killing of those students did.

And... in a way, I suppose we were acting out the frustrations of the people of South Carolina when we brought the suit.

Jim> In South Carolina courtrooms, his legal struggle against segregation continued bringing about such landmark suits that desegregated the state's public parks, beaches, and other recreational areas, that blocked a state law that would have expanded public funds for parents desiring to send their children to private schools, that desegregated hospitals, that required restaurants to serve Black customers.

The impact of his cases stretched into the political arena when in 1972 he filed a suit that resulted in the reapportionment of the South Carolina House of Representatives into single-member districts.

This opened the way for the Black legislative movement, and in 1974, for the first time since Reconstruction, 13 Blacks were elected to the House.

This was also the year in which Perry won the Democratic nomination for Congress, Second District, but lost the race to Representative Floyd Spence, who was seeking reelection to a third term.

Judge Perry> The press reports that I garnered some 43 or 44 percent of the vote in 1974.

I might say that, it was a very interesting experience for me.

I had never campaigned for office before.

I had, of course, been interested in the political activities for all of my life really.

But running for office was a new challenge to me.

Obviously, I knew nothing of running for office, and we had a very fine campaign staff around me who... weren't high on experience either, so we made lots of mistakes in that campaign.

Jim> Did you find yourself labeled because of your struggle for civil rights?

Judge Perry> Yes, I think so.

I was labeled.

But there were many people who, by 1974, were willing to judge me as a man.

And I think that the support that I got came from every segment of the community within the Second Congressional District.

Jim> But Matthew Perry's cases go beyond his beliefs for equal rights.

His determination to reduce the number on death row is based on his personal aversion toward violence.

Referred by some as "the lawyer who brings life to death row," he has been largely responsible for the fact that South Carolina has not had an execution since 1962.

Judge Perry> The Bullock case was one that I was asked to handle on appeal not long after I had been named to chair the legal committee of the South Carolina NAACP.

Quincy Bullock, a Black man, had been tried and convicted by a Dillon, South Carolina jury of the offense of murder, and the jury had not recommended him to the mercy of the court.

I was asked to handle his appeal before the South Carolina Supreme Court.

Now, at the time, I had not handled any cases on appeal, and so the Bullock case is perhaps important in my own development as a lawyer because I had to master the techniques of appealing a case in order to handle this, the most important case that had come to me up until that time.

Jim> Judge, some have said you have been largely responsible for the fact that South Carolina has had no executions since 1962.

Is that a fair assessment?

Judge Perry> Well, I have handled a goodly number of the cases since that time, yes, and have drafted the petitions for stays of execution and the other legal proceedings that have resulted in... many of those people not having been executed.

Jim> In December of 1975, acting upon a recommendation from Senator Strom Thurmond, President Gerald Ford nominated Matthew Perry for a position on the United States Court of Military Appeals.

The nomination was unanimously confirmed by the U.S.

Senate.

> Because he's a man of character and integrity, he's diplomatic and courteous, he's a man of compassion, he's an experienced lawyer, he's tried many cases in the courts of South Carolina and in the high courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, he's held in high esteem by the bench and the bar, and I consider him a man of fine personal qualities as well as legal attainments.

He's knowledgeable in the law.

It's my opinion that he will rise to other high positions as time goes by because he possesses the necessary qualifications to fill a high judicial post.

Jim> What exactly do you do on the U.S.

Court of Military Appeals?

Judge Perry> Well, this is the... civilian court created by Congress in 1950 to handle appeals from, or reviews of, court-martial convictions.

We are a court of civilian judges who... in some instances, grant reviews to service men and women who are aggrieved on account of their convictions at court-martials.

We decide their cases by either affirming their convictions or reversing.

We write opinions, as do the other federal appellate courts.

And, of course, in perhaps a larger sense, we supervise the system of military justice, throughout the system.

Jim> Do you feel your son Michael has to experience any of the same type of thing that you did as a child?

Judge Perry> Well, certainly not to the extent that I did.

There aren't any places now that- certainly no publicly owned places that he can't go in.

Nor are there many private places that he can't go, except those that are private clubs that exclude Black people.

But, I suppose he would experience it now more through the attitudes of people he comes in contact with, and that varies from person to person.

You see, what you... may not realize today and what people today may not be able to realize was or is that during the period of my boyhood, when I was a very young man in our state, if you were Black, you didn't have the privilege of going into, let us say, a hotel, unless it happened to have been a hotel operated by Black people- and there certainly weren't many of those- or a restaurant, unless it was operated by Black people, and there were some of those but not many, and certainly not if you were traveling and going from community to community.

But you might even drive into a service station for gasoline, they'd sell you the gasoline and oil, but if you wanted to use the restroom facilities, you weren't permitted to use them.

And, in fact, to take care of your most elementary biological needs, you'd have to go to the woods, after somebody had already accepted your money to sell you gasoline and oil.

Jim> And it did no good to stand up and say, "Wait a damn minute!

This isn't right!"

This is not right.

I mean that didn't work.

Judge Perry> That's right.

That didn't work.

So we had to master the sophisticated approaches of courtroom activity in order to win the right to enjoy the most basic and elementary concepts of citizenship in this country.

> As a citizen, he was always available.

Matthew played a very significant role in the transition in South Carolina... quietly, behind the scenes quite often, but always there.

He was always around and used extremely good judgment.

He was a person that was always trying to move things forward in an orderly way.

And I think Matthew really took the so-called integration crisis from the streets into the courthouse and made it easier for this state to go through the transition than it was in some of the other states in the Deep South.

Jim> Judge Perry, in talking with many people about you they all say you're a good, just, and honest man, that money wasn't primary when it came to the case.

You didn't get rich working for civil rights.

Judge Perry> I most certainly did not, quite the contrary.

Why... my family and I are not financially affluent.

We've managed to earn a comfortable living.

I've, of course, been able to pay my bills... with considerable effort in some instances.

But I suppose I value most of all that reputation that you say that I have for honesty and integrity.

I think I value that as my greatest possession.

Rev.

McCollom> I think that at times, he ran into some difficulty with his law partners because he was not producing as much money as a man of his quality would be expected to produce.

Always in demand, more work than he could possibly do, and yet he wasn't producing that much money.

Because of his concern for justice, he put his emphasis on really putting all of his legal expertise at the disposal of his client, rather than trying to build up the coffers of his firm.

And I would suppose that, that is the thing which commends him most as a judge, his concern for justice.

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