[3] He passed the bar and served a term as a commonwealth attorney for the thirty-first judicial district of Kentucky.

[3][4] During World War II, Perkins enlisted in the United States Army and served a tour in Europe.

Perkins unseated Meade and was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-first and to the seventeen succeeding Congresses and served from January 3, 1949, until his death.

The local Head Start in his home city of Hindman, Kentucky is named after Congressman Perkins.

[10][11] On August 3, 1984, Perkins was on a flight from Washington to Lexington, Kentucky, when he fell ill; when the plane landed, he was taken to a local hospital, where he died at the age of 71.

[13][14] The funeral proceedings were hosted in the Knott County High School gymnasium that was filled to capacity by colleagues and constituents of the congressman all of which were there to pay their respects.

Perkins' grave site is in Hindman, Kentucky, in a public cemetery named "Mountain Memory Gardens".