Marin activist for social justice dies
Community leader and social justice activist Kerry Peirson died at his home in Mill Valley. He was 72.
“My dad always protected the underdog. That was always his passion,” said Amber Allen-Peirson, also an activist, who was by her father’s side when he died on Dec. 30. “The body of his work over all these years have been on behalf of the poor and the needy of Marin in every way.”
Mr. Peirson was a board member for the Marin chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and Legal Aid of Marin. He served on the Mill Valley Parks and Recreation Commission, the Marin County Human Rights Commission
and the Marin Community Foundation board of trustees.
He worked to secure federal funding to give low-income households access to the internet and to build a computer learning center at Shelter Hill, an affordable housing complex in Mill Valley.
Most recently, Mr. Peirson served as a member of Mill Valley’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force up until his death from lung cancer.
“We got his insight, wisdom and perspective, which was truly unique,” said Naima Dean, co- chair of the equity committee.
In a video created by the committee, Mr. Peirson said people must come to terms with the fact that barriers to
racial equity, such as housing redlining, gerrymandering and school segregation, are not accidental in Marin.
“We have to reverse engineer the socially engineered things that have put us here in the first place,” he said. “You have to make those who are on the losing side of this equity struggle become stakeholders.”
Elspeth Mathau, also a committee co- chair, said Mr. Peirson showed up to a meeting just days after undergoing surgery.
“He wanted to keep working until the very end,” she said. “That was really inspiring. … Even with an oxygen tank he was still determined to show up.”
Johnathan Logan, a vice president of the Marin Community Foundation, said he met Mr. Peirson during a protest to release a San Quentin inmate who was facing execution. He said they started talking and realized they had a lot of similar views about social justice.
“It was always good to hear and trade ideas,” Logan said. “He challenged me and at times I tried to do the same with him, but ultimately we knew we shared the values and lots of great memories. He will be missed.”
In 1993, Mr. Peirson became the first African American aide for a Marin County supervisor. His daughter said his passion for equity could have been the reason it was shortlived.
“My dad wasn’t meant to be an aide. My dad was a boss,” she said. “He needed to have his own team because that same brilliant mind that could bring controversy to every room he walked into, brought controversy to the supervisors.”
The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution on Nov. 17 honoring Mr. Peirson for his long commitment to social justice.
In the early 1990s, Mr. Peirson met Noah Griffin while pushing to remove controversial Black lawn jockey statues from Tiburon. They became longtime friends.
“We coalesced around a number of issues,” said Griffin, a Tiburon resident and contributor to the Independent Journal. “The most significant was changing the name of the Dixie School District, which was a 22year battle.”
“He was the first to initiate it and then I was the second to go up there and counter people in the district and the overt rank racism they displayed,” he said. “It really bonded us.”
Griffin was glad he got to see his friend one last time after he died.
“I’ve only sat with three people. I sat with my father when he died, when my mother passed and Kerry,” he said. “He was a good man, a faithful servant. He did a lot for this county. He lived his life with integrity, honesty and courage and a willingness and ability to speak his mind.”
To honor Mr. Peirson, Griffin and the Mill Valley equity committee will be pushing to renaming a Highway 101 offramp in his honor. The offramp is between Tiburon Boulevard/ East Blithedale Avenue and Seminary Drive.
Dean said he used to joke about how they should name it after him.
“How great would it be if it was not a joke,” she said. “How great would it be if it became reality.”
Mr. Peirson was also a regular at coffee shops and the Mill Valley dog park as a part of the “breakfast club,” a group of people who met to discuss politics, religion and, of course, their love of dogs.
Carl Bidleman, a club founder, said Mr. Peirson always had a twinkle in his eye and a conversation in his heart. He said the club considered him family, and so did the dogs.
“The dogs would sit and stare at the far end of the field where he usually arrived from, and when they caught a glimpse of him they would take off and race across the field to go see him,” Bidleman said. “I have so many memories of him holding court while sitting on a bench with six or eight dogs around him. It was like a painting of St. Francis. Animals adored him.”
Mr. Peirson was born in Oakland and moved to Richmond in 1963, said Eric Avery, Mr. Peirson’s friend since the fourth grade.
Avery said they practiced together to join the basketball team at El Cerrito High School and talked regularly on the phone after Mr. Peirson moved to Marin in the late 1970s.
Mr. Peirson attended Contra Costa Community College in San Pablo before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., with a degree in journalism.
Mr. Peirson worked as a reporter before serving a tour of duty in Vietnam as a medic.
“Kerry was a great friend,” Avery said. “And my definition of friendship is someone who would suffer for your benefit. He did that for me and I did that for him.”
In addition to his daughter, Mr. Peirson is survived by his son Kali Peirson and grandson Cordell Coleman.