By Bud Ferillo
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following essay is an excerpted version of a eulogy made March 17 for philanthropist and South Carolina leader John Rainey, who recently passed away. You can read the full eulogy by clicking here. Excerpted with permission.
I am here to praise John Stringer Rainey, not to bury him.
In his military life, he attained the rank of Captain of a combat Infantry Company Commander. He was also a sailor where he, of course, was the Captain and John, Jr. most often his First Mate, and later with Anne in that slot. So we begin this final salute with that in mind.
“Oh, Captain! My Captain!” is an extended metaphor written in 1865 by Walt Whitman about the premature death of President Abraham Lincoln. The American Civil War was the central event of Whitman’s life.
At first Whitman did not care for Lincoln but came to love him as the President who saved the Union, emancipated the slaves and had begun planning the reconciliation of the country.
The poem begins with euphoria for Lincoln’s achievements and concludes with the poet’s vast grief and heartache for the early death of his idol.
“Oh Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! Heart! Heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. …
You may recall it from the 1989 film Dead Poets Society when English teacher John Keating (played by the late Robin Williams) tells his students they must call him “O Captain” if they feel daring. At the end of the film, the students show their support to the recently dismissed Keating in defiance against the school’s headmaster.
Such is the awesome power of poetry, and the sheer beauty of our language.
John Rainey’s work on earth was outlined in his obituary and speaks for itself. And like Lincoln’s, they now remain our tasks. What are those tasks?
Two of John’s many favorite stories were from the final years in the life of his hero, Robert E. Lee, under whom John’s great-grandfather, John Rainey, served in the Army of Northern Virginia and walked home after Appomattox to Sharon in York County. John held his great-grandfather’s pass for the walk home as a prized possession.
The first story is when Lee was serving as president of what is now Washington and Lee University when a mother asked Lee how she should raise her son. Lee said: “Madam, you must raise your son to be an American for we are one country again.”
The second relates the story of when General Lee went to church one Sunday when at communion time a black man, impeccably attired, walked up the aisle and knelt at the railing. Every white person there sat in astonishment. Frozen in their seats. All but one. Lee rose from his seat and joined the black man at his side to receive the body of Christ. The black man walked out of the church and was never seen again. Lee had spoken that day for freedom won, country served and the long road to reconciliation begun.
At his passing, John was hard at work completing a PBS documentary, A Seat At The Table, to be aired nationally this fall. It reports on this state’s ongoing struggle to bring unity between the races. Many here have been interviewed for it.
Another effort involves establishing a version of Mississippi’s William Winter Institute on Racial Reconciliation at an institution of higher learning in South Carolina. …
Now, considered by many as the conscience of South Carolina, John Rainey expects all of us, not just we band of brothers, to continue his work, especially the mighty struggle to unite our state, still much divided by race, income disparity, petty partisanship, lapses in ethics, and crippled by voter and donor apathy.
He left a special message for the wealthy in Columbia who he often said were too comfortable sitting on their money, unlike the private philanthropists with whom he worked across the state and nation. “They are still hiding the silverware in their eaves and backyards when they need to contribute to their city, state and nation.” Those who hear that message are in John’s crosshairs right now. Not a bitter pill, but a challenge to civic engagement and the good of the commonweal. The damage resulting from that considerable blind spot is all around us.
So I say to you for Captain Rainey: Rise up, South Carolina. You are late to the fight. Rise up, South Carolina, and change the trajectory of our future.
If not for your sakes, for those who follow you. Your children, our children, all the children of all the people from the mountains to the shore. …
Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and the Rainey bloodline runs back to Ireland and Scotland. …
So, on this St. Patrick’s Day, let us recall John Rainey’s Irish bloodline, and that of all of us whose ancestry runs back to the Emerald Isle. Let us hold out our hands to those who struggle for freedom today – at home and across the globe – as Ireland struggled for a thousand years.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!