John M Perkins

John M. Perkins is a sharecropper's son who grew up in New Hebron, Mississippi, amidst dire poverty. Fleeing to California at the age of seventeen after his older brother's murder at the hands of a town marshal, he vowed never to return. Afer converting to Christianity in 1960, however, he returned to Mendenhall, Mississippi, to share the Gospel of Christ. While in Mississippi, his outspoken nature and support and leadership in civil-rights demonstrations resulted in repeated harassment, beatings, and imprisonment. He was also arrested in 2005 while protesting in Washington, DC, against the government defunding of programs aiding the poor. In Mendenhall, he and his wife founded Voice of Calvary Ministries. In 1982 the Perkins returned to California and lived in Pasadena, where they founded Harambee Christian Family Center in a neighborhood that had one of the highest day-time crime rates in California. The following year, he and his wife, along with a few friends and major supporters, established the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development, Inc.