In the early 1980s, Willie J. Perry drove around Birmingham in a 1971 Ford Thunderbird painted with the slogan, “Rescue Ship,” looking for people who ran out of gas, had a flat tire or needed any kind of roadside assistance.
“You’ll find people are not going to stop for anyone who’s in trouble,” Perry said in 1982. “Batman was known for helping people in distress. And that’s my image, too.”
Perry became known as Birmingham’s Batman, the city’s own superhero.
Now, Perry is being commemorated in a mural on Birmingham’s Southside.
“About six years ago, I was doing a lot of research on the history of Birmingham for murals,” said artist Marcus Fetch, who is working on the mural.
“I found his story. I read it. I just thought it was the craziest thing.”
Fetch thought Perry would be a great subject for a mural.
“I sketched out a mural design,” he said. “I pitched it to a couple different people back then. Nobody really wanted to bite on it. Then it kind of got buried.”
Fetch was commissioned to do a mural for the Magnolia Point building on the corner of Magnolia Avenue and 23rd Street, the site of a planned restaurant with outdoor seating to be called Magnolia Point.
Michael Mouron of Capstone Real Estate Investments asked Fetch what he’d like to paint. Fetch suggested a tribute to Perry.
“Everybody loved him,” Fetch said. “The whole city loved him. He was an icon.”
On Friday afternoon, Fetch and his partner, spray paint artist Dewon Moton, put the finishing touches on the mural. It took six days.
Perry’s daughter, Marquetta Hill, came by to see it.
“It really means a lot to me knowing that my father’s legacy can continue with a new generation to come,” Hill said.
Perry paid out of his own pocket to put gas in empty tanks, his daughter said. “He had a full-time job at J.F. Day & Co. (windows and blinds shop), and when he got off work at J.F. Day, he hit the streets,” Hill said.
Perry died of carbon monoxide poisoning in 1985, when a garage door accidentally closed while he was working on the car.
The “rescue ship” was equipped with flashing lights, a record player, toaster oven and Atari video game, all wired to run off a Caterpillar D9 tractor battery in the trunk.
The car was displayed for years at the Southern Museum of Flight, then at the Alabama State Fairgrounds, then sat in a city garage near Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, then moved again in 2015 to Old Car Heaven, which permanently closed in 2017. The family now keeps it in a garage.
“Right now it’s in the Bat Cave,” Hill said. “We’re about to bring it out because we’re about to launch a fundraiser to get it restored.”
It needs some parts that may need to be custom-made she said. “Some of the parts, they’re having a hard time finding,” Hill said.
While they were painting the mural, Moton wore a red suit and white helmet to replicate “Birmingham Batman,” and Fetch donned a jumpsuit with an “R” logo for Batman’s sidekick.
“We dressed him up as Willie,” Fetch said. “I dressed up as Robin.”
The mural depicts a Black family and a white family waving at Perry as he drives by.
“It’s a good message to show that nobody’s too different,” said Moton, who has worked with Fetch on several murals.
“Dewon is an incredible spray painter and muralist,” Fetch said.
The mural portrays Vulcan looking over the city, in panoramic tones.
“We wanted to use a lot of retro colors like you’re looking back into an old memory,” Fetch said.
The mural adorns a building near a new development being built at the site of the former Southtown housing community, most of which has been demolished.
“This new development is going to change the community,” Fetch said. “It felt like this wall was perfect. I felt like this is a brand new community that’s about to be developed and I want to bring back a relic from the past that can instill all the things that I believe in.”
Perry stood for helping people, Hill said. “This was his ministry,” she said. “His thing was do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It didn’t matter what race you were, it didn’t matter who you were. It didn’t matter if you had a lot of money, or if you didn’t have any money. His goal was to help.”
