“Pharmacists are an integral part of all of health care,” said Arthur Perry, a retired pharmacist who began his pharmaceutical career at 14.
The year was 1952. He was working at Sun Drug Stores, delivering prescriptions, pain pills, over-the-counter items, sodas and alcoholic drinks to customers in St. Louis city.
Now, more than 60 years later, on Friday, April 26 Perry will receive the 2013 Lifetime Achiever award at the St. Louis American Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Health Care Awards Luncheon at the Frontenac Hilton.
It was his stepmother, Francis Barnes-Perry, who told him he had to get a job when he asked her for a new bike. Her response was encrypted with a lifelong lesson he would never forget. She said nothing is free and anything worth having he would have to work hard for it.
During his time at Sun Drug Stores, he met Bernard and David Kean who two years later opened their own drugstore, Kean Drug, luring Perry away in the process. Perry was brought on as a sales clerk in 1954.
It was one year before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery Bus, the catalyst for the Montgomery Bus boycott against racial segregation. Hundreds of miles away, the racial climate in St. Louis was very much the same.
Kean Drug, then located at Euclid and Laclede, was in close proximity to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where black and white patients were seen in segregated quarters.
According to Perry, Kean Drug didn’t wait for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a bill designating segregated public spaces as unconstitutional. The Kean brothers proudly served all customers regardless of race because they too had been unfairly persecuted.
“These two guys, being Jewish, were aware of their being Jewish,” Perry said. “Jews were not accepted everywhere. They were not of the mind to be discriminators.”
On a few occasions, some local toughs were antagonistic toward Perry in those early years at Kean Drug.
“Sometimes after work they wanted to chase me home, but I wouldn’t allow it,” he said.
At Kean Drug, Perry progressed to managerial and pharmacist positions within a 27-year time span. He said his time with the company was both educational and rewarding. One of the Kean brothers, David, speaks highly of Perry. His brother Bernard Kean is deceased.
“He’s a perfect gentleman. He’s an excellent employee, but a great friend also,” David Kean said of Perry. “I predicted that he would be Mayor of St. Louis, but he didn’t do that.”
In fact, Perry became the first person in his family to attend college after meeting and taking sound advice from Frank Kleffner, former president of the Central Institute for the Deaf and a Kean Drug customer.
“You’re too smart to spend all your time here; you need to go to college,” Kleffner said to Perry.
Perry enrolled at Saint Louis University, where he majored in political science while he took elective courses in science. In his junior year he was approached by Father Jansen, then a Jesuit priest at SLU, who goaded him to make a decision about his future. Perry asked Jansen whether he thought he could support a family with a political science degree.
Jansen discouraged him. Perry transferred to the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, where he earned a B.S. in Chemistry. He graduated in 1972 as a registered pharmacist, one of only three African Americans in his class. He served on the College of Pharmacy Board of Trustees and currently serves on the school’s Diversity Committee. His goal is to move the college toward being more active in its health outreach.
“I’m trying to get the college to make sure that the college has personnel in clinics around the metro area so that students, faculty and staff get some experience in caring for people unlike them,” Perry said.
Perry has ben active in city politics for much of his life. Currently he is president of the 28th Ward Democratic Organization.
He also has served on the Confluence, 100 Black Men and Forest Park Forever boards. Perry has been an active member of the Mortar and Pestle Society for more than 10 years and was a Peoples Clinic Organizer.
Perry retired from Eli Lilly & Company in 2000 after 19 years of service.
“He deserves any kind of achievement award you can give him,” David Kean said. “I’m very proud to see him get this.”
Tickets for the 13th Annual Salute to Excellence in Health Care Awards Luncheon on Friday, April 26 at the Frontenac Hilton are $75 each/$750 table for VIP/Corporate seating and $50 each/$500 table for Individual seating. To order tickets, call 314-533-8000 or visit www.stlamerican.com.
Late in posting this, but Art Perry was a friend & guidance counselor to the student nurses who frequented Kead Drug from the 3 nearby nursing schools. I was one. Our friendship continued over the years. His daughter is my godchild. I have been away from St.Louis for many years now, but this man made my life better for having known him. Patti Maxwell-Masotti