Biography
Ray Rainbolt was a Dakota labor organizer in Minneapolis and a Local 544 organizer and head of its Union Defense Guard, formed in 1938 in response to the fascist Silver Shirts. In his 1941 federal trial testimony, he said he was not a member of the Socialist Workers Party, although he sympathized with it and read its newspaper. He was one of the union defendants acquitted by the jury. On December 1, 1941, the jury acquitted him on both counts. No Smith Act prison sentence was imposed; any brief pretrial custody has not been quantified.
Harry DeBoer’s obituary reports that Rainbolt chaired Local 574’s complaint committee during the 1934 Teamsters strike, was elected president of reorganized Ice Drivers Local 221 in 1936, and became elected commander of the Union Defense Guard formed in August 1938 against the Silver Shirts. Rainbolt, Kelly Postal and Jack Maloney refused Governor Floyd Olson’s negotiation proposal until the arrested strike leaders were released. The obituary dates his death to March 30, 1978 and calls him eighty-two; that age conflicts with the existing exact August 21, 1896 birth date (which yields eighty-one). No replacement birthday is inferred. His July 15, 1941 indictment and acquittal are distinguished from the prison terms served by convicted co-defendants. The Militant, May 19, 1978, PDF page 19. Source: https://www.themilitant.com/1978/4219/MIL4219.pdf#page=19
