The Perry-Weston Educational and Cultural Institute Inc. promotes African-American history, genealogy, culture, and arts in Edgecombe County and all of North Carolina. The Institute also promotes the conservation of selected African-American buildings, sites, and records. The Institute sponsors classes, lectures, exhibits, demonstrations, publications, and special projects and programs.

The Institute is named for the Reverend John W. Perry, the first rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Tarboro, N.C., and his daughter, Mrs. Catherine Perry Weston. Mrs. Weston was the wife of the Reverend Milton Moran Weston (the second rector of St. Luke's), the mother of the Reverend Dr. Milton Moran Weston Jr. (rector of St. Phillip's Episcopal Church in Harlem in New York City), and the great-aunt of the Reverend Dr. Kwasi Thornell (an Episcopalian priest formerly with the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.)

Mrs. Weston's father and mother, Mrs. Mary Eliza Pettipher Perry, operated St. Luke's Parochial School, which opened in September 1881 and ran until 1957. In later years, it was operated by their daughter, Mrs. Catherine Perry Weston, and her husband, the Reverend M.M. Weston. The Perry School was on Panola Street adjacent to the Mount Lebanon Masonic Hall.