As the SPU community mourns the loss of our friend and partner, Dr. John M. Perkins, SPU Stories takes a look back at his long association with Seattle Pacific. Perkins, who died on March 13, 2026, at the age of 95, was co-founder of SPU’s John Perkins Center.
John Perkins first visited SPU as a guest speaker in 1978 — someone President David McKenna met a few months earlier.
“I heard the word about a Black man in the South who was living out the Christian faith about which so many of us only talk,” McKenna said at a chapel introduction. “That man challenged me.”
Listen to Perkins’ first chapel address titled “A Quiet Revolution” at Digital Commons at SPU.
In 2003, at the urging of students, President Philip Eaton joined them on a short-term service trip to meet Perkins and participate in the work of the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation. “This trip turned out to be one of those conversion moments for me; one of those times where God calls us to see things in very different ways,” wrote Eaton. “I vividly remember sitting with the students each morning, in fact, early in the morning, at the feet of the great John Perkins.”
In October 2004, Eaton partnered with Perkins to launch the John Perkins Center for Reconciliation, Leadership Training, and Community Development (JPC) at Seattle Pacific, the first on a college campus. Perkins described the JPC as “the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.”
A President’s Symposium on Reconciliation was held on the same day, featuring local and national leaders. Listen to some of the day’s events at Digital Commons at SPU.
On the same day as the opening of the JPC, SPU students, faculty, staff, and visitors participated in the annual Day of Common Learning, further exploring the topic of reconciliation in 16 seminars as varied as “Lessons From Vietnam,” “Cultural Reconciliation at the Movies,” and “John Newton: Amazing Grace in the Pulpit.”
In a letter to the SPU community published in the Autumn 2004 issue of SPU’s Response magazine, Perkins shared his vision for the new center.
Jackson, Mississippi, the headquarters for the Perkins Foundation, was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The SPU community joined together to support Perkins through prayer and a pooled financial gift. Perkins gave an update on the impact of the hurricane and his appreciation for SPU’s support in a letter published in Response magazine.
In 2007, Perkins spent eight weeks living on the SPU campus as a distinguished visiting professor. He taught undergraduate and graduate classes; discussed ways to recruit minority students with admissions staff; advised business faculty about teaching economic and community development issues; fielded questions from Student Life staff, and joined students for many meals in Gwinn Commons. He also spoke before numerous audiences in Seattle, meeting with business and government leaders and reconnecting with old friends. It was his longest visit to Seattle since the beginning of the Perkins Center in 2004.
Perkins was the special guest at the 2008 inaugural performance of Reconciled: A Gospel Symphony, written by music directors Stephen Michael Newby and Gerry Jon Marsh featuring SPU’s Gospel Choir and Wind Symphony.
In 2009, Perkins was the Undergraduate Commencement speaker and received an honoray doctorate from SPU. Watch or listen to his Commencement address at Digital Commons at SPU.
JPC partnered with The Bush School, Starbucks, Seattle Public Schools, the Clowes Center at the University of Washington, and Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 2011 to present a series of lectures to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr Day. Civil rights lawyer and scholar Michelle Alexander came to campus to discuss her groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness.
Perkins daughter and now co-director of the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation V. Elizabeth Perkins was interviewed by Response magazine in 2011 about her work in urban ministry in Jackson, Mississippi.
To help share his remarkable life and legacy more broadly, SPU partnered with the Perkins Foundation to produce the documentary, Let Justice Roll On, in 2011. It was written, edited, produced, and directed by Michael Eaton and assisted by JPC Director Tali Hairston. Original music was composed by Stephen Michael Newby, associate professor of music and director of the Center for Worship at SPU.
JPC organized and hosted numerous events throughout the years, including co-hosting a Perkins Lecture and Reconcilation Summit in 2013, engaging students, staff, faculty, and Christian community leaders in dialogue from a variety of perspectives. The center has been involved in the annual city of Seattle Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast for many years with Perkins as the keynote speakers at one of the events.
The John Perkins Center provided spaces to listen, learn, and discuss some of the national issues affecting the country. After the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, JPC and SPU’s Reconcilation Studies program hosted, “Race in America After Ferguson.” The program included presentations by SPU faculty members on the historical and theological context of the events in Ferguson followed by a public discussion and breakout sessions for further dialogue.
“For Such a Time as This,” a 2015 conference hosted by JPC with visiting interdisciplinary scholars and SPU faculty and staff explored the challenges of hope and reconciliation in the contexts of global crises and conflicts.
In 2016, two rare paintings by African-American artist Charles Ethan Porter were donated to SPU by local couple William Sacherek and Liselotte Lamerdin in appreciation of the reconciliation work of the Perkins Center.
To mark its 15th anniversary in 2019, Response magazine featured the John Perkins Center as its cover story. President Emeritus Philip Eaton wrote about the beginnings of this first-of-a-kind partnership between the Perkins Foundation, SPU, and Christian community leaders throughout the Northwest. Caenisha Warren, JPC executive director, wrote a personal reflection on her long involvement with the Perkins Center and its continued focus on reconciliation ministry, community development, and leadership training.
SPRINT, SPU short-term mission trips, came under the guidance of the JPC, seeking to connect students with local leaders whose work empowered communities and shared the gospel in relevant ways. JPC created Latreia, a student volunteer group, to work with local nonprofit agencies.
JPC co-hosted a public lecture in 2023 with Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah on his book, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery.
For more than 25 years, students, faculty, and staff have continued to make yearly trips to meet Perkins and join in the work of the Perkins Foundation in Jackson, Mississippi.
With an emphasis on service and community engagement, students learned cross-cultural competence and explored vocational calling through a variety of JPC programs. Urban Plunge was an immersive experience designed to help students encounter people’s stories and learn what resources are available to Seattle’s homeless population. Urban Involvement connected students to a variety of community organizations through weekly service teams.
JPC combined the student volunteer program Latreia and SPRINT to form a new ministry, “JPC Learn & Serve,” encouraging students to participate in quarterly engagements to learn about a specific local or global topic and serve with an organization that may address that topic.
In 2025, SPU hosted the John Perkins Center Legacy Dinner, welcoming reconciliation leaders and special guests — including his daughters Elizabeth Perkins and Priscilla Perkins, co-presidents of the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation. The evening celebrated the enduring impact of the JPC at SPU as Dr. Stephen Newby led worship featuring music from Perkins’ early years. President Emeritus Philip Eaton reflected on the center’s 2004 founding; President Deana Porterfield shared a vision for its future; Professor of Old Testament and Special Advisor for Diversity and Belonging Bo Lim shared about the student impact of JPC; Urban Impact Executive Director Steve Bury highlighted the center’s leadership in Seattle; and SPU Trustee Harvey Drake closed the evening in prayer. Assistant Vice President of Student Life Jenny Elsey served as emcee. Now renamed the John and Vera Mae Perkins Resource Center, the center will continue to connect campus and community through Christian reconciliation and leadership development.
