Segregationist of Claiborne Parish part three

By Jaclyn Tripp and Dr. Gary Joiner
(LSU SHREVEPORT Professor of History)
KTAL/KMMM – Shreveport, La.

The following article is the third, and final, part of a historical piece written by Jacyln Tripp and Dr. Gary Joiner about the history of Willie Rainach, a conservative, segregationaliist politician from Claiborne Parish.

Citizens in Rainach’s district react to his extremism
“As a mother, I wish to express publicly the reasons why I feel we NEED Rainach for governor and I implore every mother to consider these reasons with me,” wrote Mrs. A. C. Smith from the nearby city of Minden, Louisiana during one of Rainach’s segregation-focused campaigns.
She described Willie Rainach as a successful businessman, a born leader, and insisted that he was “qualified in every way a man should be qualified to be a good governor, but most of all he is a man of great moral fiber, a man of firm convictions who is not afraid to call a spade a spade.”
That’s when Mrs. Smith describes a spade.
“Our very way of life in the South is threatened. And Rainach is the only candidate who is qualified to face that threat. And Rainach is the only candidate who is qualified to face that threat.”
(The “threat” Smith referred to was desegregation.)
“Most of the candidates say they are for Segregation. How many can prove it? Only one—Rainach.”
And Mrs. Smith was not wrong. Rainach had, indeed, devoted a large portion of his life to preventing people of color from having the same rights as White citizens.
But another group of citizens in Claiborne Parish had very different opinions concerning Rainach’s extremism. 
A Black man named Frederick Douglass Lewis had tried to register to vote repeatedly since he was a young man. Lewis was born in 1905, and by the civil rights movement hit hard in the 1960s Lewis was already well into middle-age. He had been a farmer, a carpenter, a stonemason, an insurance salesman, and taught Sunday School. He paid his taxes. He always tried to do what was right. 
And he just wanted to vote and be allowed to run for office in Claiborne Parish, where Rainach ruled the roost. 
In 1965, Lewis and others formed a new chapter of the Deacons of Defense and Justice. They sought to protect those who fought for civil rights. At that time, the Klan was attacking Black communities throughout the state, and the FBI was afraid that the Klan and the Deacons were about to go to war.
In actually, Rainach and the Deacons were about to go to war.
In Claiborne Parish at the time, there were separate water fountains for people of color. Used textbooks from white schools were given to the Black (segregated) schools, and often many of the pages were torn out. 
But Frederick Lewis had had enough. He formed an alliance strong enough to break through Rainach’s influence in the parish. Lewis became the vice president of the Homer branch of the Deacons of Defense. They started with 12 members and went up from there. 
The parish began to slowly change as a local civil rights movement grew. The Claiborne Parish Library in Homer was integrated. Black policemen were hired. Civil rights movement leaders began to test restaurants around Homer, and four restaurants were integrated. 
Frederick Lewis’ Head Start program was started in five Black churches: Friendship CME, Ebenezer Baptist, Friendship Baptist, Dolly Chapel CME, and a church in the town of Athens. 
In short, the Deacons were able to break through the barrier and force the Black vote in spite of Willie Rainach. 
Rainach’s power was fading. But even as times began to change in Claiborne Parish, Rainach still couldn’t give up on his dream of stopping integration. 
“I have watched Leander Perez and Willie Rainach whip a crowd of 5,000 to a peak of frenzy in New Orleans with vile abuse of public officials and open calls for civil disobedience. And I have seen the uncontrolled mob violence they helped spawn,” wrote Bruce Galphin in the Atlanta Constitution, June 22, 1967.
In 1969, just after the desegregation of Claiborne Parish schools, Rainach became one of the founders of Claiborne Academy. 
The segregationists’ day was over, but Rainach was still more than welcome in Claiborne Parish where he owned Claiborne Butane. 
In 1969, just after the desegregation of Claiborne Parish schools, Rainach became one of the founders of a private school named Claiborne Academy.
A New York Times article on Aug. 13, 1970 about violence and turmoil in Homer, the seat of Claiborne Parish, explained “The civil rights movement of the 1960s had little impact on Homer… A few rights activists visited the town and tried to strike a spark, but with no success. Then, one Sunday last September, a little drive-in café on the edge of town refused to serve a young (Black) woman. Her husband heard about it and, with a group of friends including a couple of young men just back from Vietnam descended on the place. By the time the afternoon was over, 12 (Black citizens) had been jailed, charged with disturbing the peace.”
“I wish it were possible for whites and blacks to live together, but it just isn’t,” Willie Rainach told the Shreveport Times in 1974. He just couldn’t let the idea of segregation go.
Willie Rainach died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Jan. 26, 1978. His body was found at his farm in Summerfield. He was 64 years old at his death.