Editing Stepin Fetchit (section)

==Personal life==
In 1929, Perry married Dorothy Stevenson. She gave birth to their son, Jemajo, on September 12, 1930.<ref name="Shuffling" /> In 1931, Dorothy filed for divorce, stating that Perry had broken her nose, jaw, and arm with "his fists and a broomstick."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m8MACMLdgjwC&q=donald+lambright+turnpike+killing&pg=PA113|title=Shuffling to Ignominy: The Tragedy of Stepin Fetchit|last=Clark|first=Champ|date=January 1, 2005|publisher=iUniverse|isbn=978-0-595-37125-9 |language=en}}</ref> A few weeks after their divorce was granted, Dorothy told a reporter she hoped someone would "just beat the devil out of him," as he had done to her.<ref name=":0" /> When Dorothy contracted [[tuberculosis]] in 1933, Perry moved her to Arizona for treatment. She died in September 1934.<ref name=":0" />

Perry reportedly married Winifred Johnson in 1937, but no record of their union has been found.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry|last=Watkins|first=Mel|publisher=Pantheon|year=2005|isbn=978-0-375-42382-6|url=https://archive.org/details/stepinfetchitlif00watk}}</ref> On May 21, 1938, Winifred gave birth to a son, Donald Martin Perry.<ref>Clark, Champ (2005). ''Shuffling to Ignominy: The Tragedy of Stepin Fetchit''. iUniverse. p. 60. {{ISBN|0-595-37125-6}}.</ref> Their relationship ended soon after Donald's birth. According to Winifred's brother, [[Stretch Johnson]], their father intervened after Perry knocked Winifred down the stairs and broke her nose.<ref name=":0" /> In 1941, Perry was arrested after Winifred filed a suit for child support. When he was released from jail, he told reporters, "Winnie and I were never married. It was all a publicity stunt. I want you and everybody else to know that that is not my baby. Winnie knows the baby isn't mine but she's trying to be smart."<ref name=":1" /> Winifred admitted that they were not legally married, but she insisted Perry was her son's father. The court ruled in her favor and ordered Perry to pay $12 a week ({{Inflation|index=US|value=12|start_year=1941|r=0|fmt=eq}}) for the child's support. Donald later took his stepfather's surname, Lambright.{{efn|On April 5, 1969, Donald Lambright was traveling along the [[Pennsylvania Turnpike]], east of [[Harrisburg, Pennsylvania]], when he went on a spree shooting. Reportedly, he injured sixteen and killed four, including his wife, with an [[M1 carbine]] and a [[.30-30 Winchester|.30-caliber]] [[Marlin Model 336|Marlin 336]] [[carbine]], before turning one of the rifles on himself.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1969/04/06/archives/angry-young-man.html Angry Young Man], ''[[The New York Times]]'' (April 6, 1969).</ref><ref>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=SEQNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=z2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5626,789291&dq= Pike killer felt violence only racial answer], ''[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]'' (April 7, 1969).</ref><ref>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=S0QNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=z2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3196,1465564&dq= Pike killer not on drugs], ''[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]'' (April 10, 1969).</ref> The [[1969 Pennsylvania Turnpike shootings]] were officially ruled a murder-suicide, but the account of the circumstances upon which the ruling was based was questioned by Lambright's daughter and discussed at length in her 2005 self-published book about Stepin Fetchit. In a ''Los Angeles Times'' interview, Lincoln Perry stated his belief that his son was set up.  Lambright's involvement with the [[Black Power]] movement at the peak of the [[COINTELPRO]] program was believed to be related to his death. Perry never provided child support for Lambright, and they only met two years before his son's violent death.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-11-20-mn-7848-story.html|title=Stepin Fetchit, Noted Black Movie Comic of '30s, Dies|last=SEILER|first=MICHAEL|date=November 20, 1985|work=[[Los Angeles Times]]|access-date=March 8, 2017|language=en-US|issn=0458-3035}}</ref>}}

Perry married Bernice Sims on October 15, 1951. Although they separated by the mid-1950s, they remained married for the rest of their lives. Bernice died on January 9, 1985.<ref name=":0" />

For at least the great majority of his life, Perry was a devout [[Catholic Church|Catholic]], but he allegedly became a member of the Nation of Islam in the early 1960s, following the footsteps of his close friends [[Muhammad Ali]] and [[Malcolm X]], even appearing in the 1977 movie ''Muhammad Ali, the Greatest''.<ref name=":3">{{Cite news|url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/perry-lincoln-theodore-monroe-andrew-stepin-fetchit-1902-1985/|title=LINCOLN THEODORE MONROE ANDREW ("STEPIN FETCHIT") PERRY (1902-1985)|date=February 15, 2007|author=John W. Ravage}}</ref> (Other sources say he was a lifelong Catholic; he was buried at [[Calvary Cemetery (Los Angeles)|Calvary Cemetery]], a Catholic institution in Los Angeles.<ref name=":4" />)