Matthew Perry: To him life and the law are one

Matthew Perry was a giant in the law, the culture and the history of South Carolina.

From his childhood in Columbia’s Waverly neighborhood, Perry would fashion himself over eight decades into an attorney who helped beat back racial segregation, inspired admirers beyond the legal profession and made history as deftly as friends.

Perry became the state’s first African-American federal judge in 1979. Three years earlier he was the second black man named to the U.S. Military Court of Appeals. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had made history himself, administered the oath Perry took onto the federal bench.

Perry was 89 and still an active judge when he died in July 2011 at his home, seven years after seeing Columbia’s federal courthouse named for him. Few would argue he embodied the term, “your honor.”

“Matthew Perry – an iron fist in a velvet glove – courteous, polite, even jocular but unshakably determined,” South Carolina historian Walter Edgar said of him.

During the turbulent 1950s and ‘60s, Perry fought court cases that would compel resistant whites to open public parks and the classrooms of the Palmetto State’s two largest universities. He won reprieves for students who protested segregation and were arrested. Knowing the courts were not friendly to African-Americans, Perry’s strategy was to win on appeal cases he lost at trial.

“It is gratifying to feel that we have resolved some of our problems of yesteryear,” Perry said in his signature baritone a month before his death.

“But at the same time, we must recognize there is a long way to go.”

– Clif LeBlanc

This story was originally published November 5, 2015 at 12:14 PM with the headline "Matthew Perry: To him life and the law are one."