William Augustine Perry

William Augustine Perry was born in 1883 in Tarboro, North Carolina. He attended Hopkins School in New Haven and, in 1902, completed the collegiate program at Saint Augustine’s in Raleigh, North Carolina (where Yale graduate Charles H. Boyer served on the faculty). Perry graduated from Yale College in 1907. While at Yale he contributed to the Yale Courant, a student publication which ran from 1882 to 1917. He also attended classes in the School of Music. In 1911, he married Susan Mabel James in his hometown of Tarboro, and the couple had four children.

Perry pursued a career in education, working as principal of several schools, including a public elementary school in Tarboro (1907-1911), St. Athanasius’ School in Brunswick, Georgia (1911-1927), and the Colored Memorial School, also in Brunswick (1927-1928). In 1930 he became a supervising principal of several schools in Columbia, South Carolina and simultaneously became director of observation and practice teaching at Allen University in Columbia. He received a Master’s in Education from Harvard in 1934. He was president of the Richland County Teachers’ Association from 1932-1934, and starting in 1935 became editor of School Work, a publication of the Palmetto State Teachers’ Association. He was active in the Columbia community, participating in the NAACP, Boy Scouts, Masons, and St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church. Perry died in Columbia in 1939.

"Bill Johnson," The Yale Courant 43, no. 2 (1906).

"Along the Lynching Line," Colored American Magazine 17, no. 4 (1909).

"Along the Lynching Line---The Mask," Colored American Magazine 17, no. 5 (1909).