Judge Perry: When I graduated from high school, Booker T. Washington High School, here in Columbia, I enrolled at South Carolina State College. That was not always its name. It was and is a land-grant college. And so, I enrolled there. But, World War II occurred, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in either my freshman or sophomore year. And of course, during the next several months the draft was enacted by the Congress and many young men, were drafted. We did have many young women serving, also. And so eventually, I was drafted into the military. I reported, in accordance with their directions, in January 1943, and I served for 3 years, and was discharged in January 1946.

Maggi Morehouse: When you went in, were you thinking about your father’s military service? Or were you aware of the history of black soldiers in World War I or the Buffalo Soldiers from the West?

Judge Perry: I was not. I grew into an awareness. I learned about it. But you ask, was I then aware? I cannot say that I was.

Judge Perry: I went to a war-time camp, no longer in existence as far as I know, called Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi, somewhat adjacent or outside of Shelby, Mississippi, and that’s where we did our basic training. I was in the quartermaster unit. Ultimately, in Europe, we were assigned to the 3rd Army and the great General Patton was our ultimate commander.

Maggi Morehouse: So going into the service, were you surprised that things were segregated?

Judge Perry: No, as a matter of fact, being a black man, having been born and reared in South Carolina, I was accustomed to the folk ways, the mores, of life in, certainly South Carolina, and in such other places as I might have visited or been familiar with. The requirement of separation of the races was a fact. It had been officially decreed in a Supreme Court decision in 1896 called Plessy vs. Ferguson. I was not aware of that case at the time. But I’m simply pointing out that in South Carolina and in every other place that I had any familiarity with, the races were separated. We went to schools that were racially segregated. I went to schools for black young people, and I attended a college that was a land-grant college, but it was established for the education of “colored” people. So yes, I was very familiar with the requirement of racial separation and I was also familiar with the practices of people who were white towards black citizens. We were treated, of course, as inferiors and we were required to comport ourselves in the society and certainly in relationship to people who were white, in a, sort of a subservient fashion. Now as a boy, you see, I grew up under that kind of a regimen. Now did I fully appreciate what I was being exposed to? No, I did not. At first, you see, I did not perceive that it was wrong. It was just a fact of life. But as I grew, and as I gained, very slowly, an education, I did indeed begin to wonder about the fairness of many of the things that I was exposed to. Undoubtedly, I came to a point, I cannot tell you at, how old I was at the time, when I decided that this isn’t right, but was I able to address what I perceived to be the unfairness of it? No. It was the law. But once I began to realize that it was basically not fair, I began to wonder. This isn’t right, but what can be done about it? I didn’t know. I didn’t have the ability to address it. By the way, that realization, that growing awareness, did eventually lead me towards the decision to study law, but not immediately, you see. I had to grow into it.

Camp Van Dorn wasn’t very nice. Of course, we did our basic training. You know, in the military you conform to a rigid disciplinary regiment, and of course, you don’t get much of a chance to think about the atmosphere. You just do what you’re told. There were occasional involvements with some of our troops with people in the civilian community. One or two of our men were accused of rape. I have no idea about whether they were guilty, but I do know that they were charged and tried and convicted. Of course, I had no, as best I can recall, no personal interaction with people in the civilian community. All of my interactions with other people were with people in the military. Now, we were black troops, but our officers were white. And of course, many of these officers were out-and-out racists, who treated us with much, much disdain and disrespect. Of course, they had the benefit of rank, and so you had to salute them and you had to answer them “yes sir” and “no sir” and you had to conform to the rigid military discipline meted out as it were by people who undoubtedly hated you because of the color of your skin.

I was notified about the availability of Officer Corps Training. And I believe I submitted an application, but it was rejected. Few young black soldiers, of course, were admitted, or became second lieutenants. None were assigned to our outfit.

In the quartermaster you do whatever, whatever you’re directed to do, but of course we ultimately were assigned to handle supplies. Many quartermaster troops were assigned to things like grave-digging; some were assigned to driving trucks; all sorts of labor-intense activity. But also you see, we were given infantry training. We were taught to fight. And we were led to believe that we were being trained to fight the enemy. And of course, you developed a sense of pride in the uniform of the American soldier.

I had an experience . . . I was traveling from Mississippi to South Carolina on a pass, but had to change trains. By the way, this was before air travel; we were traveling by train. And we had to change trains in Alabama, Birmingham. And of course, the railroad station, like the stations in all southern communities, was racially segregated. There was a restaurant and, of course, if you’re black, you couldn’t go in that restaurant. It was for white people only. Now you could, as a black, go around to the window, just off the kitchen and order whatever you wanted through that window, pay for it, which I did. I recall it was cold and damp. Now our nation was already at war with the Italians and had begun capturing Italian soldiers. And so there were perhaps several prisoner of war camps in the United States where these foreign prisoners of war were being held. Well, as I stood outside this restaurant, I managed to look into the dining room. And here were a number of young men in uniforms, white men, I later learned they were Italian prisoners of war, having been captured over there, being brought into the United States en route to a prisoner of war camp. Of course, the young women were serving them, friendly, you know, young women exposed to handsome young men in uniforms. It didn’t matter a bit that they were supposedly the enemy. You could tell there was smiling and there was rather cheerful bantering going on.

Now realize, I grew up under a segregated system. I had grown up initially feeling that it was just the way things were, that it was nothing wrong with it. As I grew intellectually, I began to question in my mind whether it was correct. I came to a point at which I decided that it wasn’t right. Now at this moment, here I am, a young man wearing the uniform of my country, being trained to engage the enemy in battle. I’m an American soldier and I’m denied the right to go into this restaurant and eat. And lo and behold, here we are entertaining foreign prisoners of war in a situation in which they are being accorded decency and everything. Now at that moment, you see, now mind you, this isn’t the first time I’ve experienced that. I knew of it. I’d been exposed to it here in my own state. But all of a sudden, it occurred to me, “this isn’t right!” And I experienced a level of insult that reverberates to this very day. I do mean out-and-out insult, dismay.

In my mind, I hadn’t exactly carried my concepts into foreign communities. It’s just that as I saw it right here in my own country, I was insulted. This was to me an affront, not only to me as an individual, but it was an affront to my entire race of people. Although, I was not steeped up in the 14th Amendment—yet—and its declaration that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. That had to come later in my mind. It hadn’t yet. But at that moment, whatever citizenship meant to me at that time, yes, I felt it, and I was insulted.

Maggi Morehouse: Tell me about your ideas as having accomplished “Double Victory” during the war.

Judge Perry: I don’t know that I had any active awareness of the racial incidents in our country at the time. Yes, of course, you learned about lynchings. They were published in the news, and so you knew about them. Having grown up in the southernmost United States, why, lynchings were unfortunately a part of what happened in America. During all of this period, you see, I’ve grown from the boy that originally was exposed to life in the United States in a segregated fashion, who grew into a young man, and who grew intellectually and who came to perceive that it was not right, that indeed it was wrong, but who didn’t know what to do about it, and eventually turned to the study of law. In my mind, I felt that knowledge of the law might better equip me to understand what I was looking at and to perhaps come to some solution either on my own or in combination with other people towards remedying it. I think my decision to study law was a product of all of that. I used the GI Bill. I was educated after my service in the military under the GI Bill. That was a great item of legislation.

Source: Judge Matthew J. Perry, Jr., oral history interview by Maggi M. Morehouse, Columbia, SC, 2010.