‘But this is home’: Hilton Head activist, native Perry White dies Wednesday at age 85

Only death could silence Perry White.

And even now, his voice is ringing in a lot of ears on Hilton Head Island.

White died Wednesday at age 85 after almost half a century of forcefully defending the overlooked on Hilton Head, where he was a fifth-generation member of one of its most revered families.

“There were three ways,” longtime fellow activist Thomas C. Barnwell Jr. said Thursday with a laugh.

“There was the right way, the wrong way, and Perry’s way.”

That often aggravated people at Town Hall, but to Barnwell, it was a good thing.

White took no slack off anyone. That could be jarring, especially to the flood of newcomers who transformed the quiet island where he grew up on a farm into a town of 40,000 with 2.5 million visitors a year.

White remained involved in island issues until he had a massive stroke about a year ago.

“He was always in a meeting,” said his daughter, Valarie Grier. “He always had a cause, and then the next cause, and the next cause, and the next cause.”

Those causes included 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, where he rose to master sergeant, and then work back at home to help the underprivileged.

They included fighting the incorporation of the Town of Hilton Head Island, fighting for land-use rights for native islanders, fighting encroachment on his church and neighborhood by the expanding Hilton Head Airport, promoting the Gullah culture and pressing for public acknowledgment and preservation of its prominent position in island and American history.

He was a charter member of the island’s Human Relations Council, founded in the 1970s to encourage informal meetings and discussion of issues between island natives and the newcomers.

He was a founder of the Ella C. White Scholarship Fund, created to honor a teacher in his family by awarding college scholarships to local graduates.

In his later years, he was a ring-leader in creating the Arthur E. Wiley American Legion Post 42 on Hilton Head.

His life reflects a quotation he shared the day a historical marker was dedicated at the old Gullah Cherry Hill School in his native Baygall community:

“In the words of an old Negro hymn, ‘It was a tejus (tedious) journey.’ “

Town of Hilton Head Island

Perry White was one of 11 children of prominent islanders Johnny LaSalle White and Matilda W. White.

His father was a farmer, carpenter and gardener who started a landscaping business after the island began developing. Johnny White also was a walking historian, churchman and community leader, serving as one of the first black school board members in Beaufort County.

“He was a person who cared about his family and particularly wanted to see his children become educated and be productive citizens,” Perry White said when his father died in 1993. “He had a tremendous devotion to his church and an obsession for education.”

Education remains a hallmark of the White family. For Perry White, that meant leaving home to attend high school. He was a boarding student at the Penn School on St. Helena Island, graduating in 1952 in a class of 17.

After his time in the service, White returned to the island in 1973 with his wife, Barbara, and four daughters.

“We saw the progress here over the years,” he said about returning home. “If not for the progress, we would not have come back here. ... We would’ve gone some place with better schools and better job opportunities.”

He became a business manager with the Beaufort-Jasper Comprehensive Health Services.

He was a leader in the local NAACP chapter when it challenged the island’s incorporation in court. The legal arguments failed at the state Supreme Court and the federal appeals court levels, and the town was incorporated in 1983.

Native islanders thought the “limited-services” town would be all taxes and land-use rules without offering any services they needed, such as public water and sewer and paved roads.

Indeed, when Martha Baumberger was sworn in as Hilton Head’s third mayor in 1987, she said one of her “treasured” quotes came from Perry White:

“I don’t know what limited government is — either you have a government or you don’t have a government.”

White fought that government for greater development density on land owned by native islanders.

He and Barbara ran a Gullah Flea Market for about 15 years on U.S. 278 across from the Squire Pope Road intersection. It opened as a farmer’s market, was highly visible, and was seen as a bellwether business for the Gullah culture and native island community. It was a place were artisans worked, including sweetgrass basket weavers.

White sold the 4.9-acre site to the town for $2.15 million and retired in 2003.

At the same time, Town Council up-zoned the land in that gateway Gullah community from four units per acre to 10 units per acre.

History corridor

White was a deacon at St. James Baptist Church, which sits near the end of the Hilton Head Airport runway.

He was a leading voice in the church’s opposition to airport expansion.

“I think we are being careless and cavalier about expansion of the airport,” he said.

Part of the fight involved cutting many trees, including a large oak in the churchyard.

“Those trees are treasures on our island,” he said, “and they should be protected with all that this community can muster.”

He led the effort to get a historical marker placed in the yard of the church, showing that the congregation dates to 1886.

“It’s important that we connect our past with the present,” he said.

About the notion that the church should just move, he said: “Everything is not disposable.”

He worked for decades to get a monument returned to his church’s Union Cemetery. The monument had been dedicated to a U.S. Army quartermaster stationed on the island during the Civil War, and it had been moved to the Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery.

That was part of White’s plan to make the cemetery part of a larger historic corridor to include the Gullah churches on Beach City Road, the Cherry Hill Schoolhouse, and the Mitchelville Freedom Park.

Much like his father, White was a prodigious gardener who gave food to all who needed it.

And he was a devoted fisherman — casting a net into Port Royal Sound or a line into Coggin Creek.

After his stroke, White would fish from a wheelchair on the dock at the town’s Squire Pope Community Park.

He attended the ceremony for the town’s 25th anniversary in 2008. He said then that, overall, things turned out well after incorporation but there remained pockets where sewer, paved roads and speed-limit enforcement were needed.

“I have been a lot of places,” he said. “I have met a lot of people. I have done a lot of things. But this is home.”

This story was originally published December 20, 2019 at 4:40 AM.