Claiborne Parish
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In 1896 the U.
S. Supreme Court upheld legal segregation in the landmark case Plessy vs.
Ferguson, a test case originating in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Homer Plessy, a light-skinned African-American, boarded a white railroad car in
1892. His arrest was protested as a violation of his 13th and 14th Amendment
rights. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled the state
had not violated his rights. In the meantime, the state of Louisiana passed a
law in 1894 requiring separate accommodations in railroad depots as well. The
ruling that segregation was constitutional as long as both races were provided
equal facilities created the “separate but equal” doctrine.
In Claiborne Parish, as was the case in other parts of America, the “equal” part of the doctrine was not practiced, but clearly understood by blacks and demonstrated by whites. “Unequal” practice was the law of the land and was enforced by the educational systems, governmental and political authorities, and economical sources. The parish’s health and medical systems, housing systems, recreational and public accommodations joined in this unconstitutional practice of treating blacks as second class American citizens.
The 1898 state constitution placed further restrictions on African Americans as it throttled their right to vote as well as requiring separate schools for white and blacks. This led to a sharp decline in the number of registered African American voters. Further restrictive laws and bills were passed in the years to come further separating whites and blacks in all aspects of life.
The majority of black families living in the Friendship community owned their land since the community’s growth very early after the Civil War. Long-standing land owners included the Washington, Penton, Davis, Kinsey, Jones, Frost, Nisley, and Lewis families. This land ownership by Friendship residents continued through the 1960s and 1970s and may have served to further bolster the residents. Willie Curry of Homer and former Friendship resident Almer James Millage believe black land ownership in Friendship empowered the land owners because they were not accountable to white land and property owners like so many African-Americans in other Claiborne Parish communities. Millage spoke recently to family members, former Friendship residents, who were not land and property owners in the community but instead rented a house from a white landlord. The family told Millage the landlord warned them to stay out of the “civil rights mess.” He threatened the family with eviction if they participated in any way. The family opted to live as peaceably as possible in the community, so they did not engage in protests nor did they attend the Claiborne Parish Civic League meetings held at the Friendship church.
State Senator William M. Rainach represented Claiborne Parish from 1948-1960 after serving as the parish’s state representative from 1940-1948. A staunch segregationist, Rainach was instrumental in establishing and enforcing the political and social climates of the Northwest Louisiana communities he represented. William Rainach organized and became the first president of the Louisiana Association of Citizens’ Council of America, a branch of the Citizens’ Council, a white supremacist organization concentrated in the South. Senator Rainach and others like him held strong to the Jim Crow Laws of the South and were determined to maintain a society separate for blacks and whites.
The senator clashed openly with Governor Earl Long over Rainach’s attempt to prevent African-Americans from voting in Louisiana, which had been one of the more moderate southern states in its policy toward disenfranchising blacks. Rainach was determined to purge the electoral rolls of all blacks, name by name if necessary through a state law allowing two registered voters to challenge the validity of any voter — even for misspellings or minor mistakes on their voter registration cards.
A retired African-American Claiborne Parish educator recalled being denied the opportunity to attend services at a Catholic church in Homer due to what he labeled “the Rainach system.” The man stated the nearest Catholic Church that welcomed him to worship was located in El Dorado, Arkansas, an hour away from Homer. The impact of William Rainach and those who shared his views was prevalent throughout Claiborne Parish for decades, and it took a strong and persistent alliance to combat his influences and overturn the policies established and enforced. It was in this setting the civil rights movement in Homer, Friendship, and Claiborne Parish began.
During those years leading up to desegregation, the Claiborne Parish Civic League (CPCL) worked tirelessly in its effort to bring justice and equality into all areas of the parish. Gloria Ford Pitts and her family were active members of the CPCL and residents of the neighboring Liberty Hill Community. Like numerous young people during that time, Pitts participated in peaceful protests and was consequently arrested. When asked about her experience of being in jail, she surprisingly reflected upon it with humor. She commented with a chuckle, “I went to jail and stayed seven days, three hours, and twenty minutes.” Pitts said she actually enjoyed the experience. She explained the purposes of the protests were clear to her, and she understood they were catalysts for reform which would ultimately make life better for everyone. Pitts’ father, sisters, and some friends were also arrested, thus providing the camaraderie and support in a situation which would have otherwise been terrifying.
Pitts referred to her cousins to be Claiborne Parish’s version of the Little Rock Nine. Pitts recalled, “My cousins were asked to help integrate Lisbon High School, which was an all-white school in our community.” The Fords had the reputation of being “smart kids,” and they and their parents attended church regularly and were strong community activists. Most importantly, their reputations were unsullied. Just as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had done with individuals like Rosa Parks, the CPCL carefully vetted those individuals they considered exceptional candidates to integrate schools and businesses. They wanted their best and brightest representatives. The selection of these individuals served to eliminate any justifiable reason to deny them admittance. They gained admittance to Lisbon High and attended for a brief period. Lisbon High closed around 1970, and the Ford children transferred to Pineview High School, a Lisbon school with an entirely African-American student demographic.
In approximately 1973, Pitts and two other ladies, Louise Bursey Lewis and Mattie Gray Howard, were the first three blacks to serve as voting commissioners in Claiborne Parish. Pitts has served as Commissioner in Charge in her precinct for over thirty years, and she credits these achievements to the work of Fred Lewis and the CPCL.
Pitts refers to Lewis endearingly as “Papa Fred.” She stated, “Papa Fred approached me to become a commissioner. At first, I was a little hesitant, you know, because of how the whites back then were acting. But then I made up my mind because it was my right as much as their right. This is what we were marching for. So, I just jumped and did it, head first.”
Pitts noted two of her sisters were “firsts” in their respective fields in Claiborne Parish. Donna Ford Robinson became the first African-American secretary at Homer City Hall, and Jessie Ford Washington was the first to work in retail in Homer.
Willie “Hoghead” Curry was a Marine veteran and selectman for District 1
in the town of Homer. Curry was been a life-long community leader,
activist, CPCL member, and civil rights icon who fondly remembered
attending CPCL meetings at the Friendship CME Church during the 1960s
and early 1970s. Curry cited churches with apathetic congregations as
being counterproductive and major obstacles to the movement. Some
individuals maintained that one’s financial responsibility to the church
was sufficient and in due time, situations would improve. Curry
passionately explained the Friendship CME Church was the exception.
“Friendship church was the beacon in Claiborne Parish for activity and
involvement during the civil rights movement. The people living in
Friendship were industrial strength people when it came to commitment to
civil rights and human rights…The Friendship people were no-nonsense,
and they did not skin and grin in your face. They were honest, and you
understood their positions.”
When asked about the CPCL objectives, Curry opined, “The Claiborne Parish Civic League from my understanding was not so much concerned about integration as it was about the quality of education. We wanted our black children to be exposed to the same quality of education as other children in the parish. The black kids at Mayfield, Pineview, Athens, and Hillcrest had old, out-of-date, hand me down books from the white schools. There was the foregone conclusion that education was wasted on the black kids.”
Curry reflected, “The thrust for my involvement was my little nephew. You see, my sister had a baby boy who was gentle and sweet. He rarely cried and appeared at such a young age to not want to bother anyone. This child was precious to me. As he grew, he wanted very much to go to school. During those early days of his being a student, he enjoyed himself so much. But, things changed. He stopped wanting to go to school because some white folks threw ammonia at the kids as they got off the bus.” This disturbing incident was life-changing for Curry.
Friendship CME Church
Former Friendship Community resident Almer James Millage moved to Friendship to live with his maternal grandparents as a young child and remained there consistently until he graduated from high school. He was a teenager during the middle to late 1960s and remembers learning of the Deacons for Defense and Justice during his teenage years: “The first time I heard about the Deacons for Defense was from Mr. Fred Lewis. He was the pioneer of the Civil Rights era and the guru of the civil rights movement in our area at the time. I was fascinated by those black men arming themselves against attacks from white men. For that period in history, a black man standing up like that was a definite no-no.”
The CPCL was described as “a weak and timid organization until January 1965, when a small group of men led by Frederick Lewis infused it with a new militancy. Lewis was elected president of the CPCL and would also become the president of the Homer Deacons chapter.” Co-founder of the first Deacons chapter in Jonesboro and Claiborne Parish native Frederick Kirkpatrick often visited the Friendship CME Church in Lisbon to work closely with Lewis and Fred’s brothers, George and Otha. Kirkpatrick corresponded with the Lewis brothers even after he moved to New York City, and he expressed full confidence in their support of his objectives.
Kirkpatrick depended upon the Lewis brothers to disseminate important information related to upcoming meetings and health awareness to the citizens of Claiborne Parish. Kirkpatrick helped in the organization of the Homer Chapter of the Deacons for Defense. Frederick Lewis was the president, and his brother, George, was one of the officers. The four north Louisiana chapters in Jonesboro (the founding chapter), Grambling, Homer, and Minden acted as a regional security, assisting each other with civil rights activities.
Before formation of the Deacons chapter in Homer, a short-lived chapter of the NAACP in the 1940s reorganized as the CPCL in the 1950s. Frederick Kirkpatrick helped organize a Deacons for Defense chapter in Homer in May 1965. In addition to helping organize the Deacons chapter, Kirkpatrick also brought in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which ran a CORE summer project in Homer. Over the course of the summer, CORE and local activists organized mass meetings, desegregation tests, and nonviolent workshops held at Friendship CME Church and at the Educational Building in Homer (still extant). The Deacons’ meetings were often held in conjunction with the CPCL’s meetings as the members were essentially the same people (and both were headed by Lewis).
Another focus of the Deacons and CPCL was protests and marches aimed at dismissing unpopular African American educational leaders. At first glance, this may seem an odd goal for the group, at least one of these educational leaders would round up black students to work on the property of the white superintendent who required students to mow his yard, plant trees, and perform other miscellaneous tasks. Teachers and principals were also required to work for the superintendent. He was able to force students, teachers, and principals to work because their education and jobs were at stake if they did not comply. One former teacher (who prefers to remain anonymous), whose husband was responsible for rounding up teachers and students, stated the CPCL hoped the teachers and principals would stand up and tell what was going on, but “…you have to understand that those people needed those jobs. They had families to support. Their contracts were tied to whether they did what the superintendent wanted them to do.”
The reception of the Deacons by the local law enforcement was unfriendly at first. This is evident in one event experienced by Harvey Malray. On June 26, Malray had been guarding a fish fry at the Masonic Hall in Homer. As he left, a Homer police officer stopped him and told him it was illegal to walk around with a loaded shotgun. Malray showed him his Deacons membership card, thinking it would perhaps smooth things over. The office responded by stating the card showed nothing about carrying loaded guns around. Lance Hill writes, “Malray personified the way that the movement changed the black self-image and sense of entitlement. Once the Deacons believed they had legal authority to exercise their rights, it was difficult for law enforcement to convince them otherwise.” Malray was not charged that night, but on June 29, he was arrested as he guarded the porch of the local freedom house. He was released after a few days and continued to be active with the Deacons in Homer and Jonesboro.
The Homer Deacons helped enact change within public accommodations and over time, the relationship between the Deacons and the law enforcement improved. In August 1967, the CPCL had a march to the local school board and local law enforcement asked if the Deacons would provide members to help the police guard the march.
On New Year’s Eve 1965, the Deacons from Jonesboro, Minden, Grambling, and Homer organized a night march where they assembled in an empty lot owned by a Deacon. They built an effigy of a Klansman and burned it to the ground. This act showed the north Louisiana Deacons were confident they would be left alone and marked a meaningful change in the confidence of African-Americans in the region.
Miriam Feingold of CORE conducted a series of interviews of civil rights workers in the South during the summer of 1966. Fred Lewis was one of her subjects. Lewis, the oldest of seven children, was born in 1905 and lived in Friendship his entire life. His formal education went no further than the sixth grade; however, he had an unquenchable thirst for learning. Having a heightened awareness and understanding of what was going on around him as a child, he began the interview with a discussion of the impetus for his interest in human and civil rights. At twelve years old, he overheard a conversation that set Fred on the path of social activism. He reflected, “When I was a boy about 12 years of age, a white man was talking to my father in his yard. He related to my father that he had to go to Lisbon to vote. He reminded my father that he (Lewis’ father) couldn’t vote. I thought that my father could do anything in the world that anyone else could do. That was the only thing that attracted my attention…And at that age, it never did leave me. And I vowed right then, at the age of twelve, that if I ever got a chance, I was going to hit this thing a blow.”
Undaunted by efforts at intimidation by segregationists as well as apathy from some African-Americans in the parish, the Claiborne Parish Civic League led by Frederick Lewis went forward with the voter registration drive and the integration of businesses and schools. Lewis stated, “Since that day, January 10, I have had constant conferences in Washington at the Justice Department and the Office of Equal Opportunity. Last year, they said that I was solely responsible for getting Head Start…In January 1965, I met with the Ways and Means Committee to get the program down here. Prior to that time (April 28, 1965), we went to the school board and asked the superintendent for help. He failed to give it to us. He said he wasn’t going to integrate. We then asked our professional people in the parish for help. I knew that I did not have the ability to file applications, make out the budget and everything like that. What really happened was this. When they failed to do so, we called in CORE. CORE came. We had opposition, too. We debated and put the pressure on so heavy that we voted unanimously to bring in CORE. We give CORE credit. The first lady to work with us through this was Judith Rawlings from Massachusetts. Finally, Willie Ellis came. He was the mastermind.”
The Claiborne Parish Civic League needed a chartered organization in place to sponsor a Head Start Program and to challenge the police jury and school board. In his interview with Feingold, Lewis discussed a charter that helped the CPCL in its effort to move forward with litigation. He said that in 1965 the organization, which was named the Claiborne Parish Economic and Social Opportunity, Incorporated, was chartered. Now, the Claiborne Parish Civic League could begin a more organized and strategic approach in aggressively challenging local government in its deliberate refusal to comply with national civil rights legislation such as Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Lewis told Feingold the Head Start Program was not in place on the date of the interview, due to “all of the challenges by the white people.” He hoped by October 31, 1966, Head Start would be launched in the parish. According to George A. Kinsey, church steward, the Head Start Program was launched in Claiborne Parish at the Friendship CME Church in or around 1966.
Lewis went on to say the first successful integration in the parish was that of the Claiborne Parish Library in 1965. Tests, which were similar to sit-ins but did not involve forcible removal, were begun in May 1965. Eateries named the Majestic, Purple Cow Steak House, and others were successfully integrated; however, this was short-lived. The restaurants resumed refusal of African-Americans customers until they went to the back of the restaurants.
The greatest accomplishment of the Claiborne Parish Civic League was its voter registration drive. The December 16, 1964, Information Letter from CORE indicates Claiborne Parish had a “Negro Population” of 9,755 with 96 registered to vote. (The “White Population” was 9,646 with 5,229 registered to vote.) In some instances, hostile employers threatened the employment of blacks who had registered to vote. Joseph Mitchell recalled a white school board member telling his brother he would “never work in Claiborne Parish while I am on the board.” There is no record of Mitchell’s brother seeking assistance from the Claiborne Parish Civic League or any recourse sought concerning the school board member’s remark. Instead, the employee chose to quietly relocate to another community where he continued his career as an educator and retired after 30 or more years of service.
Claiborne Parish resident and former Haynesville mayor Sherman Brown spoke of an occasion in 1972 when the Claiborne Parish School superintendent refused to allow him employment at a local high school where the majority of students were Caucasian. The superintendent matter-of-factly told Brown he would be given the opportunity to work in one of the black high schools, but the request to work at the preferred school was not negotiable. With the support and encouragement of two African-Americans from his community, a principal and a school board member, the appointment of a new superintendent, and the efforts of the CPCL, Brown was hired a year or two later at the school of his choice. Ironically, he also became the first African-American to serve as Claiborne Parish Superintendent of Schools.
The CPCL recognized policy changes occurring locally and nationally. The members knew these changes were happening at a snail’s pace; however, advancements were nevertheless being made. The unrelenting, conscientious effort of the Claiborne Parish Civic League was making a difference. In August 1972, Mr. Lewis, as president of the Claiborne Parish Civic League, brought an action in United States District Court, Western District of Louisiana challenging the constitutionality of the apportionment of the Claiborne Parish Police Jury and Claiborne Parish School Board which would affect an unfavorable voting outcome of an election. The court declared the police jury and school board of Claiborne Parish were malapportioned in violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By April 1973, three African-Americans, including Frederick Lewis, were elected to the Claiborne Parish School Board. Two were elected to the Police Jury.
African-American leadership and representation within Claiborne Parish have seen marked growth in the more than thirty years since the end of the Civic League and Frederick Lewis’s death. Thus far, three African-American mayors, two in Homer and one in Haynesville, have served Claiborne Parish. Numerous individuals have served as members of the Claiborne Parish School Board. The board has hired a number of black school administrators. Two have served as superintendent of schools. African-Americans currently serve on the local parish police jury and town council.
By all accounts, the Friendship CME Church played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement. The church was one of two regular meeting places for the local civil rights organization, the Claiborne Parish Civic League. It was the only church building in the parish where the organization held meetings from January 1965 until 1973. The other meeting place of the CPCL during those years was the Friendship Missionary and Educational Association Building, which is located at 299 Washington Street in Homer. While both buildings still stand today, the Friendship CME Church was the official meeting place of the CPCL. The plans affecting growth and change in Claiborne Parish were envisioned, created, and put forth during the sessions held at the church.
During the Civil Rights period of the 1960s and early 1970s, the church’s pastor was the compassionate and out-spoken Reverend C.L. Jones. In January 1965, Frederick Douglass Lewis was drafted as the new president of the Claiborne Parish Civic League, an organization that served the same purpose as the NAACP but did not share its national fame. The Friendship CME Church was the only church in Claiborne Parish to serve as the meeting place for the Civic League.
The Friendship CME Church is described as being the “beacon” of the parish because its church members, some of whom were also the black middle-class, and the Friendship community at large, were known for their fortitude and sheer courage during those turbulent and unpredictable times of racial strife. The events planned and conducted at Friendship CME Church between 1965 and 1973 were vitally important to the ethnic heritage of blacks in Friendship, Homer, and Claiborne Parish.
Contributed 2020 Oct 01 by Wesley Harris
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