The cause was complications of dementia, which he had about 10 years, said his wife, Donna. She said that Perry's doctors believed that dementia caused by football concussions.
Perry, who lived in Chandler, Ariz., had been receiving financial assistance under a plan of benefits of the National Football League aiding former players with dementia, his wife said, and his brain will be donated to a facility for Boston University which examines this issue.
Perry, one of pro football top runners during the decade after World War II, was the first player to rush for N.F.L. more than 1,000 yards in two seasons, reaching the milestone in 1953 and ' 54, and he was voted all-N.F.L. team in both seasons. He was a three-time Pro Bowl player.
In the mid-1950s, Perry starred in what became known as the million Dollar Backfield, teaming with y. a. Tittle, and Hugh McElhenny at quarterback and John Henry Johnson at halfback, all future Hall of Famers. Perry was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in 1969.
Perry was small for a fullback at 6 meters and 200 pounds, but he pulled on speed earned him the nickname "Jet and a knack for finding holes in the defensive line.
"If you saw a hole, you take it," Perry told The Sacramento Bee in 2006, that describes his running style. "If you didn't, you kept moving until you did. You are running with instinct. "
Fletcher, Perry was born on January 22, 1927 in Stephens, Ark., but moved with his family to Los Angeles as a drug spray. His heroes were U.C.L.A. 's black football stars Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Jackie Robinson, who would later break baseball's color barrier.
Perry played football at Compton Junior College in Los Angeles area in 1944, then joined the Navy. He was discovered by 49ers while playing football for Alameda Naval Air Station in the Bay Area.
Perry joined the 49ers in 1948, his third season in the All-America Football Conference, becoming the team's first black player. Washington, Strode was signed by the Los Angeles Rams N.F.L. two years earlier, and the Cleveland Browns, who won the All-America Football Conference championship in each of its four seasons, featured the Black Stars Marion Motley and Bill Willis. But there were some other black players in pro football in the 1940s.
Perry recalled how teammates, including those from the South, which strongly supported from the beginning.
"If someone on the other team has ever any idea that he wanted to start something, he had to destroy our whole team," said Perry, Andy Piascik "Gridiron Gauntlet" (2009), an oral history of trailblazing black players.
But he had been ready to fight back on their own if necessary. "You had two or three bigots on every team, so you hear things just about every game," he recalled. "I could take all they had to say, but if they had ever put your hands on me, as if they wanted to fight, it would have been something else."
Perry averaged 7.3 yards a carry and ran for 10 touchdowns as a rookie, he played with future Hall of Fame quarterback Frankie Albert.
In a game, which Perry remembers it, he had twice burst past Albert as he tried to leave him for a play off in the middle. "He said, ' Joe, you're like a jet coming through there." From as long as I played, I was known as a Jet. "
49Ers joined the N.F.L. 1950, after All-America Football Conference went bankrupt, and Perry soon made his mark with pro football's most famous player. 1954 (limit values averaging 6.1 yards a carry out) he got 1.018 yards in 1953 and 1,049 yards in a 12-game seasons. But the 49ers never N.F.L. championship game during his years with them comes closest in 1957 when they were beaten by the Detroit Lions in a playoff for the Western Conference title.
Perry was traded to the Baltimore Colts season 1961, played two seasons for them, and then returned to the 49ers for his final season.
He received 9,723 rushing yards in 16 pro seasons, 1,345 yards in All-America Football Conference and 8,378 yards in the N.F.L., after having been the League's career rushing leader until he was surpassed by Cleveland's Jim Brown in October 1963. Perry had 71 rushing touchdowns and 12 as a recipient.
Perry was later a scout and Assistant for the 49ers and a sales manager for Gallo wines, and he owned a bowling-supplies shop.
In addition to his wife survived him by a son, Jon, his daughters Joanne Frazier, Denise Simmons and Karen Perry, a stepdaughter, Gabrielle Vasseur, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Pro Football popularity soared during the decades after he played and the contestant became larger and faster, but Perry seemed unimpressed.
"When I played, it was a lot of tough guys," he says Football Digest 2003. "We would play with broken bones and things that you do not see these days."
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