Lawrence Andrew Rainey Sr. (2 March 1923-8 November 2002) was an American policeman and white supremacist who served as Sheriff of Neshoba County, Mississippi from 1963 to 1968. He was involved in the murders of three civil rights activists during the Freedom Summer of 1964.
Biography[]
Lawrence Andrew Rainey Sr. was born in Neshoba County, Mississippi in 1923, and he left school in 8th grade to work as a mechanic and later as a policeman. He became a police officer in Philadelphia, during which time he murdered Black Korean War veteran Luther Jackson on 30 October 1959 after claiming that he was resisting arrest, and he was elected sheriff in 1963 on a platform of dealing with rising racial tensions. On 21 June 1964, Rainey's deputy Cecil Price and the Ku Klux Klan arrested and murdered civil rights activists Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney, and Rainey was later indicted for violating the three men's civil rights. While Rainey was acquitted, six others were convicted. Rainey was not re-elected as sheriff in 1968, and he had difficulty finding stable employment. He worked as an auto mechanic and security guard in Kentucky and Meridian, Mississippi, and he blamed the FBI for his employment troubles. He died of cancer in 2002.