There are few Black people in Houston and beyond who haven’t been touched in some way by the work and ministry of Perri (P.K.) McCary, a Houston-based artist, educator and social activist who works tirelessly to cultivate relationships across racial, gender, generational and cultural aisles.
In some circles, McCary is most known as an award-winning author of nine books, starting with her acclaimed Black Bible Chronicles series, and her most current book, Hindsight2020. She’s also a founding member of URI (United Religious Initiatives) and co-founder of Think Peace International, a communications media network for peace activists.
Earlier this year, McCary was one of just a handful of individuals chosen from a nationwide search by the organization United Religions Initiative to journey on an international mission to see what lessons the formerly war-torn nations of Rwanda and Serbia have for the U.S. in dealing with its ongoing racial strife.
“She has been the wind behind the sails of a lot of community-based movements in Houston in terms of bringing her profound talents to polish those movements, including many of the things I have been associated with,” said Omowale Luthuli-Allen.
The Defender was able to speak with McCary about her local and global impact.
DEFENDER: With decades of international impact, why is Houston still so near and dear to you?
MCCARY: My motto over the last 20 years has been to think globally but to act locally. My community is mostly Third Ward because I grew up here, I was mentored here, supported here, taken by my ear here. And I was mentored well. Barbara Jordan, Dr. [Thomas] Freeman, Dr. John Biggers. Dr. Biggers, who’s office was right around the corner in the art department from my father’s office, gave me paints and pencils. Dr. Freeman was in the building across the way. I would walk from Yates after school and my lessons were still beginning because Dr, Freeman and Dr. Biggers were there, teaching me more. These were people who not only were my elders, they were family. Omowale Luthuli-Allen, we are like brothers and sisters. We’ve done a lot. Whether we’re talking about Clarence Brandley or Nelson Mandela, we in Houston have been on the front lines.
DEFENDER: With everything going on in the world, is there a specific issue you think people should focus on?
MCCARY: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And if you’re ready to make a difference, I think that you’ve got a lot of social issues that you can support and that you can impact. And impacting the future is what I want to do more than anything. I’ve been with a lot of indigenous tribes and communities across the globe. I’ve been to more than 20 countries. And each time I’ve been shown such hospitality as a Black woman. This trip to Rwanda, though, I will tell you was the most affirming and fulfilling time of my life. As I go this 70 years around the sun, I have been blessed. And as I was coming home, yes, I was tired, but I was also supported going there and coming back.
DEFENDER: What has been the biggest takeaway from your international travels?
MCCARY: The biggest lesson that I have learned is part of my strategy. It’s called the “Seventh Generation Strategy.” What we do today affects the next seven generations. And what is affecting us now has been because of the past and the lessons that we didn’t learn and we didn’t see or that we colluded with… I went to Serbia, and one of the things that amazed me was that the Mosque and the Jewish Temple were right around the corner from each other. And after the war and the bombings, they obliterated a hotel with millions of books. Why would they do that? Because they don’t want you to have a history. They don’t want you to have your narratives. And right now, they’re banning books. I say, write more of them. Because there are more stories to be told. But the controlling of your narratives is an important element in having an impact seven generations from now. There’s a saying, “Elders are people who plant trees that they will never sit under, whose shade they will never enjoy.” I want to plant trees whose shade I will never enjoy.
DEFENDER: For high school, you started at Madison. How and why did you transfer to Yates?
MCCARY: The first day of school, I got called the N-word by a boy who was the brother of the girl sitting next to me. In those few seconds, not one teacher came and got that boy and told him, “We don’t use that language.” I realized that there was a group of young boys my age who were either football or basketball players, and they stood up. Somehow I think I knew that this wasn’t gonna turn out good for us if I said anything. So, I said, “I don’t know what he’s talking about, but let’s get up and go someplace else.” And I got the girls to go with me and I diffused that situation. But 1967 was just a year of disappointments, subtle racism, not understanding why the math teacher wouldn’t answer my questions.
DEFENDER: Wasn’t that the year you met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?
MCCARY: Yes, and his assassination was the final straw for me at Madison. That morning, when I walked to school, I didn’t know that Dr. King had been murdered. But Dr. King had been here in Houston in 1967. He brought Aretha Franklin, Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, and they threw smoke bombs in the coliseum. And it wasn’t just white people that didn’t want him here. There were some Black ministers who didn’t want him here either. But I got a chance to meet him for that hot second because Reverend Lawson, my father’s frat brother and one of the ministers who supported Dr. King being here, was my neighbor. And I was playing with his daughter, you know, being teenagers. And we met Dr. King for that brief time.
DEFENDER: How did you respond a year later when Dr. King was murdered?
MCCARY: I found out on that Friday after the day he was murdered that he was killed. We were going to protest. I didn’t know we were gonna protest. But we did, walking out of the school. I went to the principal’s office and told him that Dr. King was killed. He said, “What has that got to do with us?” And I said, “Well, President Johnson asked us to please put the flag at half mast Dr. King was a good man. And he, “Can you get your classmates to go to back to class?” And I said, “Yes, sir. We’ll go to class.” He said, “Okay, I’ll handle it.” I ran back and I told my friends, “He’s gonna do it. He’s gonna put the flag at half-mast. He just told us we needed to go to class.” We came out of that class an hour later, and that flag said, find me. He took it all the way down. And I stood in the sea of my Black friends and white friends, or people I thought were my friends, chastising me for even asking the principal to put that flag at half-mast. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I called my mother to pick me up, and I told my mother and father that night that I wasn’t going back to that school because they did not care about me.
