LITMIR.BIZ

      Claude Clifford McLain

      No single preacher/pastor influenced me as much as my father, Claude Clifford McLain. C. C., as he is fondly called posthumously today, was born December 28, 1912, into wealth and privilege to John and Almeta McLain. His father was an entrepreneur and the son of a white farmer, who gave him eighty acres of land. Within a short time, John McLain owned a six-hundred-acre farm, two sawmills, three taxicabs, and the only commissary (grocery store) in his hometown, Choudrant, Louisiana. He also owned racehorses and was the largest stockholder in the local bank.

      John was the apple of Claude’s eye, his idol and hero. At age six, in September, 1919, everything changed. Three months before C. C.’s seventh birthday, his father John was shot in the back by a white employee. John McLain died the next day on his forty-second birthday. A transcript of the court record laid on the dining room table of our home for years. All of the money, stock, mills, and most of the land were taken from Claude’s mother by the manufacture of “You owe me.”

      Growing up, Claude walked to Grambling to get a high school education. He endured humiliation and demeaning acts by whites, who rode the buses, and often, they threw their excrement from the bus window on him as he made the ten- to twelve-mile walk one way in pursuit of his high school diploma. After Grambling Negro Normal School, C. C. worked and studied under George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute during the Great Depression. While reading books about Dr. Carver’s life, particularly the one entitled In His Own Words, the writer of the foreword suggested that Dr. Carver’s voice was pitched higher than the average woman because he was probably castrated to be sure there would be no children fathered by Carver being that he lived in the “big house” with whites.

      My father told us that, upon meeting Dr. Carver, he first heard his greeting from behind some rosebushes. “May I help you?” Carver asked in a very high voice. C. C. had just arrived by freight train and walked to the campus. He worked a while for Dr. Carver and Dr. Moreland, learning farming and how to administer medication to livestock. This was extremely helpful during his years of cattle farming, planting, growing and harvesting southern plantation pine trees. After Tuskegee, C. C. attended and graduated from Bishop College located in Marshall, Texas, at the time.

      Our mother, Mildred Oliver McLain, told us that Dad’s first marriage ended when his wife Grace died in Tuskegee while he was a student. There were no children born to that union. After studying at Bishop, Claude was a teacher and the principal at the Saint Rest Elementary School. C. C. would laugh upon reflecting on his many responsibilities as principal/teacher at St. Rest. This was a time of growth and learning for both him and his students.

      During the late 1930s and early forties (1940), C. C. would come home from teaching school and work at the sawmill, which was less than a half mile from the lot he and mother had purchased. He received no monetary pay. Instead, he was paid in lumber. By 1942, he had completed the nine-room framed house that still stands at 1419 Oakdale Street in Ruston, Louisiana. He hammered and nailed even after dark while mother held a flashlight.

      In the mid-1940s, C. C. pastored two churches, New Hope in Ruston, Louisiana, and Galilee in Hodge, Louisiana. While pastoring the New Hope Baptist Church in Ruston, in the early 1950s, C. C. was told by a member of the church, “Pastor, you know what happens before our night service is over?”

      “No, what happens?”

      “A lot of the members go across the street to the Red Onion.”

      “What is the Red Onion?”

      “You know, it’s a joint, where they dance and stuff. It’s a shame.”

      C. C. said, “I’ll go over there if you all go with me and show me how to get in.”

      “Yeah, we’ll go. Everybody’s talking about it. It’s a lowdown shame.”

      The next Sunday night worship, after the offering, C. C. asked the members who did not leave after the offering to remain for a few minutes.

      After the offering, the members who frequented the “Red Onion” left as before. C. C. spoke to the members that remained.

      “I’m going over to the place across the street where some of you say our members are. All of you who will, follow me. We are going just to see, not talk.”

      The “Red Onion” was just across the street from the church. C. C. walked out, followed by deacons and other church leaders and members. As the pastor and church members walked in single file toward the Red Onion, they began to hear the music. They heard blues and swing growing louder. When they entered, the dancing church members were “getting down.” They had no idea that their space had been invaded by their fellow church members. Suddenly, someone yelled, “O Lord. It’s the pastor and deacons. They are in here.”

      The dancing churchgoers still had their choir robes on or across their shoulders. Dancing ushers wore their church usher badges. All were adults who knew the latest dance craze. Immediately, panic struck. The dancing churchgoers ran in every direction. But the only way out was the front door. They were trapped. When the dancing and music stopped, C. C. said, “Shame on you. All of you church members should

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