Perry Wallace
Who was Perry Wallace?
What challenges did Perry Wallace face at Vanderbilt University?
What were Perry Wallace’s achievements in high-school basketball?
What did Perry Wallace do after his basketball career?
How has Perry Wallace been posthumously honored?
Perry Wallace (born February 19, 1948, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.—died December 1, 2017, Rockville, Maryland) was a trailblazer in college basketball who became the first Black varsity basketball player in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). On December 2, 1967, he played his inaugural varsity game for Vanderbilt University against Southern Methodist University. He was the earliest basketball player to effectively integrate the conference, despite threats and harassment from crowds and players alike.
The early years—and early successes
Wallace was born in Nashville, the youngest of six children. His dad was a construction worker, his mom a domestic worker. Late in life, in an interview with Vanderbilt Magazine, Wallace expressed his admiration for his mother, Hattie, who attended school through the eighth grade in rural Tennessee. Though that was less schooling than she desired, she stayed curious and continued to be a lifelong learner. When five of her children went to college and one to the military, Hattie was intensely proud, Wallace recalled.
Throughout his youth, Wallace attended Nashville’s segregated public school system. By high school he was already making history. At Pearl Senior High School, now known as Martin Luther King, Jr. Magnet School, Wallace earned the moniker “king of the boards” for his basketball prowess. During the 1965–66 academic year, the first year that the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) allowed Black athletes to participate, Pearl’s team won the TSSAA state championships with an undefeated 31–0 season record. Wallace, who averaged 12 points and 19 rebounds per game, earned All-Metro, All-State, and All-American honors and was recruited by more than 80 colleges and universities.
Wallace was also a straight-A student, and he graduated as valedictorian of his class in June 1966. The month prior, Wallace had made the choice to commit to Vanderbilt University to further his academic and athletic career—a decision that would ultimately lead to Wallace breaking down racial barriers, though that was not what he had set out to do. In a 2014 interview with National Public Radio (NPR), Wallace said, “I wasn’t interested in being a pioneer, or making history, or doing any of that.”
“A gritty, dirty, ugly business”
During his first year at Vanderbilt, Wallace played alongside Godfrey Dillard, another Black basketball recruit, on the freshman team. But for the next three years, Wallace would be the only Black athlete on varsity. Despite the promises made during recruitment, Wallace experienced an isolating reality at Vanderbilt, both on and off the court. As The New York Times wrote in his obituary, Wallace said to the school’s human relations council in 1968 that he was “lied to about the extent of racism on the campus and the sort of social life he would have” as one of the few Black students at the university.
But as bad as things got on Vanderbilt’s campus, the racism Wallace faced at other schools in the South, where there was a history of support for segregation, was worse. In the deep South, many colleges had refused to play against teams with Black athletes. Wallace experienced violent abuse and racial epithets during his freshman year at games against Mississippi State University, the University of Tennessee, and Auburn University.
Andrew Maraniss, who wrote a 2014 biography of Wallace, said to The New York Times that Wallace had contemplated leaving Vanderbilt after that first year. But, according to Maraniss, Wallace “felt that he had started something that was too big to quit” and did not want to prove right the people who thought he would fail.
In 1967, during his sophomore year, Wallace took to the court against Southern Methodist in his first varsity game, officially making him the first Black varsity basketball player in the SEC.
Wallace continued to face a slew of threats and abuse, which took an intense emotional toll. He noted in an interview with NPR that if he had not taken time to heal, things could have ended up much worse, citing the tragic suicide of Henry Harris, the second Black athlete to play in the SEC.
In the same interview, Wallace said that, even though society has an affinity to rejoice in the bravery of the heroes of the civil rights movement, the reality is “[changing the system is] a gritty, dirty, ugly business. And most people are not up for it, including the people who lead and govern the institutions.”
Despite the hostility of fans and opposing players, Wallace continued to get better during his three years on the varsity team, reaching a season average of 17.7 points per game his senior year. He still remains the school’s second best rebounder of all time. Wallace’s jersey number, 25, was retired by Vanderbilt in 2004, a year after his induction into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. Wallace also went on to be inducted into the Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008.
Law career and a lasting legacy
Wallace graduated from Vanderbilt with an engineering degree in 1970. From there, basketball was a brief fixture in Wallace’s life—he was drafted into the National Basketball Association (NBA) by the Philadelphia 76ers, though he was cut during preseason. He then secured a spot on the Delaware Blue Bombers roster, a team in the minor-league Eastern Basketball Association, before going on to pursue a law degree at Columbia University.
After graduating from Columbia in 1975, he worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, focusing on environmental law, and the National Urban League. Wallace was also a law professor at American University, Howard University, and the University of Baltimore. Additionally, Wallace worked on projects on a global scale, including as a representative of the Federated States of Micronesia at a United Nations global warming hearing in Kenya.
Wallace married Karen Smyley in 1983, and they adopted a daughter, Gabrielle, in 1992.
Wallace died from cancer in 2017, and the SEC awarded him the Michael L. Slive Distinguished Service Award shortly after his passing. In 2020 the city of Nashville renamed a portion of 25th Avenue South to Perry Wallace Way to honor his legacy.
Virginia Hunt