James E.G. Perry: justice of the Florida Supreme Court.

• Author: Pudlow, Jan
• Position: Interview - Cover story

James Perry was only 11 when he joined his first civil rights demonstration: a mock funeral procession with a casket symbolizing the death of Jim Crow. They marched from the church in front of his home in the segregated projects of New Bern, North Carolina, to the field where he played sports.

It was May 17, 1954, the day the U.S. Supreme Court declared separate schools for black and white students unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education.

"We thought he was dead, but, you know, the expense of that funeral has yet to be paid," Florida Supreme Court Justice Perry said with a wry laugh.

Growing up with a strong social conscience on the front lines of history, Perry joined many more peaceful civil rights demonstrations as a boy and young man, living the philosophy he now passes along to college students: "Don't be afraid to seek the truth or rock the boat."

During his undergrad years at Saint Augustine's University in Raleigh, he and fellow football team members protested unequal treatment and sought understanding from kindred spirits. They didn't find it at the First Baptist Church of Raleigh. Along with three students, Perry dressed in his Sunday best to attend worship services with the all-white congregation, only to be ordered removed from the sanctuary by the pastor from the pulpit.

He will never forget the day he heard Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speak, and then marched with the civil rights icon in downtown Raleigh, while the Ku Klux Klan--some wearing white hoods and some dressed like storm troopers ready for battle --glowered and shouted the n-word, trying without success to intimidate.

"When you are not allowed a seat at the local lunch counter, it's hard to imagine a seat on the Florida Supreme Court," Justice Perry once wrote.

After nine years as an 18th Circuit judge, followed by nearly eight years on the Florida Supreme Court, 72-year-old Perry will finish his judicial career in December because of "constitutional senility," the Florida law mandating judges retire during the term they hit 70.

"I will rest a little while, but I won't stop. I have no idea," Justice Perry said, when asked what he plans to do next. "You see, my whole life has never been planned. Opportunities will present themselves, and I'm flexible enough to be attuned to those opportunities. As long as it's positive, as long as it's helping other people, as long as I'm happy, I'll do it."

Describing himself as "a public servant who loves the public," Justice Perry is a gentle giant who likes to hug, a colorful storyteller who's good at listening, a straight-shooter who's true to himself, an accomplished jurist who never lost the common touch.

'Apartheid in America'

Perry's life began in New Bern, North Carolina, as a poor child growing up in the segregated projects, at a time he calls "apartheid in America."

In one of those moments he describes as "life having a way of correcting itself," in 2004, Judge Perry returned to his hometown to be honored with the "Key to the City."

To better understand his own story, Perry shares New Bern's unique history as a Union city during the Civil War that became a safe haven for slaves.

Led by Union General Ambrose Burnside, the Battle of New Bern on March 14, 1862, captured the strategic river port town, with a combined force of 11,000 soldiers. With Confederate forces driven away, slaves flocked to New Bern and nearby James City, in what historians described as the largest refuge in North Carolina for black men and women.

"The first blacks to fight for the Union out of the South came from New Bern," Perry said.

In exchange for fighting for the Union, New Bern's blacks demanded benefits: Take care of our families and educate our children. Teachers from Massachusetts came down to teach.

"So we had a head start on everybody else," Perry said. "There's a certain uniqueness about black people from New Bern. Nobody has a Southern drawl accent in New Bern."

Though there were lynchings in North Carolina and crosses burned on the front yard of his uncle, Perry said those scary facts were kept from him as a boy, so he never feared standing up for what's right.

He describes his parents as "people of integrity, loving Christians, people of faith."

His mother, Julia Mae, finished the third grade and worked as a maid at the Queen Anne Hotel. She was 40 when she delivered a little boy she gave the big name of James E.C. Perry (though she always called him "Sonny").

The E.C. stands for Edward Clark.

"My favorite uncle's name is Seth Clark Williams. He was president of the NAACP. My mother met this woman, whose name was Ms. Edwards. She told my mother, 'If you name him after me, he won't have to want for anything.' I haven't seen her since, but the name sounds rather aristocratic. You'd think I was born with a silver spoon. But, actually, I was born with a wooden spoon, like you get with ice cream," Justice Perry said, belting out a belly laugh.

His father, Glado Alonzo Perry, known as G.A., worked as a lathe operator in a veneer plant to help support his mother and younger siblings.

"My dad's mother was a teacher. She graduated from the normal school, like the 12th grade today, and she home-schooled him. He could read and write. He taught himself to play the piano and organ. He could make anything. He became foreman of the veneer plant," Perry said.

"I was the only guy in the projects whose dad would write poetry."

Asked if he respected his dad, Perry answers softly: "I guess I do now."

But as a kid, he admits he hated his dad who forgot Christmas, never showed up for James' high school football and basketball games, and missed his graduations from high school, college, and law school.

When he was 11 and already 6-foot-2, James asked his dad for a bicycle, and his father said: "You're bigger than I am. Go get a job."

James lasted one day in the tobacco fields, where the leaves stung his eyes and he couldn't work fast enough. He cleaned offices and became a driver's helper on the Coca-Cola truck that would later lead to rather lucrative union summer jobs in high school and college working for Coca-Cola in New York City.

In 1952, his father borrowed $50 from an uncle to publish a book of poems, Inspiration--The Gospel in Poetry, and James helped peddle the little blue books for 50 cents each to church-goers.

But he never read his father's poems. Not until much later.

In 1991, after his dad had died and Perry was a successful lawyer in downtown Orlando and doted on his three children, in stark contrast to his father's example, he asked his mother if she still had one of those poetry books.

Reaching under her bed, his mother pulled out a worn copy of The Gospel in Poetry. Perry read the 62 poems over and over, verses about racism, segregation, marriage, fatherhood, and faith, with these titles: "The Prodigal Son," "The Devil," "The Day of Grace," "Discrimination," "A Parent's Duty," "Father's Day."

And this from "The Golden Rule":

"Do unto others as you would Have them to do unto you. Try to accomplish something good ... Be loving, kind and true."

In 2000, the year he was appointed to the circuit bench, Perry published 5,000 copies of the book to pass out to folks who crossed his path. Calling it his legacy, Perry keeps a framed copy of the book under glass.

"My father set an example of what not to be," Perry told the Tampa Bay Times in 2009. "When I read this book, it seems paradoxical. It talks of family and love.... When I read this, I said, 'Wow! Maybe he did love me.' Because you couldn't tell by his actions."

While his parents worked, young James was sent to a babysitter they called Mutt, who cared for 10 kids in her home. She set up a school, like an early version of Head Start, that gave him an educational boost. By the time James started kindergarten in New Bern, he not only knew the alphabet, he could read, write cursive, and spell. In the first grade, he was put in the upper tier with children of professional parents.

Thriving in school, James sang in the choir, was the first male to take a typing class, captained the football and basketball teams, was elected vice president of student government, and was voted "Most Versatile, All Around Student."

"I was taught I was never better than anybody else, but I was no less than anybody else," Perry said. "So I never had an inferiority complex. Never...