Edmund Perry (c. 1968-1985), a 17-year-old black boy, was shot dead on June 12th 1985 by Lee Van Houten, a white plainclothes policeman, a few blocks from where Perry lived on West 114th Street in Harlem. The New York Times does not ordinarily report murder north of 96th Street, but this time they did: Perry, it turned out, had just graduated from Exeter, one of the top private schools in America, and was set to go to Stanford University.
At first it seemed like yet another case of an out-of-control policeman who held black life too cheaply. But it turned out not to be so simple: Perry, according to witnesses, was trying to rob Van Houten! With his brother Jonah, no less, who was an engineering student at Cornell at the time! Jonah was later tried and found not guilty. Van Houten’s shooting was ruled justifiable.
Robert Sam Anson, a white writer for Life magazine, had a son at Exeter who knew Perry. Anson wondered what on earth would possess Perry, with such a bright future, to throw it all away by robbing someone.
After ruling out a police cover-up, Anson asked Perry’s friends and neighbours about him. They always had such nice things to say. At Exeter it was the same. But all the nice things they said did not add up. In time he found that Perry had been selling drugs at Exeter. But that only deepened the mystery.
Exeter was not a great place for blacks. One black student said they were a kind of minstrel show put on to give white students a sense of diversity: “By God, their kids are going to be well-rounded. They’re going to have Rossignol skis and Lange boots and a black roommate for ‘an experience.’”
It seems the racism at Exeter affected Perry far more profoundly than the other black students. It consumed him with anger and made him a radical, one who saw Martin Luther King as a sell-out.
His white teachers and classmates did not understand him: every time he tried to open up and be honest with them he wound up hurting their feelings. He could not talk to them. The only people who understood him were black students and the one white teacher who had grown up in Harlem. But they could not help him.
Perry did not fit in at Exeter, and yet Exeter changed him so much that he had a hard time fitting in with Harlem. He was torn between two worlds with no place to call home.
Anson made all this into a book, “Best Intentions: The Education and Killing of Edmund Perry” (1987), but in the end he had no answers. Michael Eric Dyson, who could have wound up becoming another Perry himself, said it was because Anson did not try to understand the black world that Perry came from, so he could not understand Perry or his anger.
The book was turned into a made-for-television film, “Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story” (1992).
See also:
- Michael Eric Dyson
- Harlem
- Lorene Cary: Black Ice – also went to a white private school
- All blacks are racist
- minstrel show
Wow.
I’ve heard of Edmund Perry but never knew the whole story.
Have you heard of John Forte, the Haitian-American singer/rapper? He was part of the Fugees camp. He also was a rare black student at Exeter (in the early ’90s). It’s funny because he later would serve a lengthy prison sentence for a drug charge.
is it possible that Edmund Perry was just bad? There are tons of of people..given all kinds of opportunities who end up doing evil because they are evil. Perhaps their parents abused them, perhaps they didnt.
Stanton E. Samenow wrote a book that deals with this…it is called the “myth of the out of character crime” which covers the fact that their are always indicators .
Edmund – you said – when they dug deeper had things that put his crime into perspective. There were other kids who experienced the same racism and problems he did. Yet he made the choice to sell drugs and murder and rob. Stanton E. Samenow says it boils down to basic selfishness. Crimes are committeed because the person believes they have the right to it..because they are X (insert excuse here – they are white and better, they are black and have been wronged, they are men and stronger, they are catholic, they are muslim, they are …) What ever they think gives them the right to do things society says is wrong…to go against the moral code and break the law.
Two men, same neighborhood, same background, same race… lose their job. One in desperations steals to feed his family. The other goes with his family to a soup kitchen (although embarressed) and in desperation moves away from his family and takes a job doing manual labor and sends money back.
One will sacrifice his pride and himself for others…the other is to selfish and turns to other ways that the self sacrificing man would never turn to…The difference is not race or upbringing…it is pride and good vs. evil.
I believe some people are good and others are not.
Dedabets:
Small correction: Perry did not murder anyone.
On the one hand I think what he was dealing with was harder than most people suppose and Exeter had no way of catching him when he was falling. Mynameismyname brought up John Forte (who I did not know about). Michael Eric Dyson too was going down the same road for a while.
On the other hand, I do think it speaks to his character. From what I know of him I could see him feeling he had the right to break the law.
he looks evil and ugly no offense
i guess he got frustrated about the white supremacist culture maybe, but that wasn’t the way to handle it and MLK wasn’t a sellout either. I wish we had leaders like MLK today because Al Sharpton and all these other people are jokes. If we had more MLK’s then maybe the black community would be in better standing than it is as a whole.
gotcha – he was killed by the cop, he didnt kill the cop…sorry, my mistake…yet I think my arguement still holds. You have encountered racism in your life…you have delt with bad and unfair things…yet would you rob someone? I think not…You are a good man.
Good men respond to bad things with strength and resolve. they speak out against the wrong. They do not rob etc. they do not give in the selfish temptation to strike back.
Something Samenow discovered inhis research.
You can have to parents..both criminals.
They have three kids…one will be a criminal the other two…good upstanding citizens. Because two of the kids are basically good…and when given the chance..choose good. the other is basically bad…and gives in the the opportunity to do wrong.
Right: no one is a slave to his upbringing.
Monica, I take offense. And from your first comment, you do sound evil and ugly-hearted. Or maybe just shallow. Same difference, really…
Invoking MLK while throwing the first stone. Yeah, right.
I went to school with eddie and jonah we all went to wadleigh jr H.S. and I dont remember edmund being the monster the media has made him out to be. The edmund i knew was quiet, shy and very sure of himself i hope he’s resting in heaven.
I was a close friend of Eddie’s in Spain the year before his last year at Exeter. He was smarter than most people at Exeter and that also certainly caused friction because most of them were white and too sheltered to realize how their behavior demonstrated racial bias. Imagine leaving home in your early teens and not fitting in with a bunch of rich, spoiled kids and then no longer fitting in at home for 3 months every summer because everyone everywhere is jealous or threatened by you. You are a target and you have to be confident, and when you’re in your mid teens you can sometimes tip over into being over confident, especially if you are in a hostile environment that would otherwise intimidate you. We talked a lot about racism because most Spaniards didn’t have any experience with blacks. Eddie usually only got angry when he was being held back unfairly.