SCHLEY COUNTY, GA - BIOGRAPHY Rev. Dr. John H. Lewis (1884-1958) ***************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm *********************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Rev. Dr. John H. Lewis (1884-1958) Eminent African-American Educator and Methodist Minister from Schley County, Georgia By Clarence D. White Rev. Dr. John H. Lewis (1884-1958) Eminent African-American Educator and Methodist Minister from Schley County, Georgia By Clarence D. White Origins, Summary of Life Of the legions of native African-Americans who have migrated from this Black Belt county, no one, arguably, is more distinguished than the Rev. Dr. Lewis. Born John Henry Lewis on March 8, 1884 to the parentage of Sim and Hattie Lewis in the Spring Hill community, this Schley Countian had an extraordinary life that spanned the breadth of the country. His momentous career took him from Ellaville to Americus, to Atlanta, to Cuthbert, to New England, to Chicago, back to Atlanta, to California twice, back to Atlanta, to Little Rock, Arkansas, to Wilberforce, Ohio, and back once again to Atlanta, where he passed on October 4, 1958 at 74. A minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Lewis was president of Atlanta's Morris Brown College- AME founded and governed-at two times, from 1920 to 1928 and from 1951-1958. During his first presidency, the young F. D. (Frederick Douglass) Harrold (1901- 1992) of Americus was one of his students. Harrold would later spend most of his career as a teacher, principal, and coach in Schley County. In 1957 upon the recommendation of Professor Harrold, the Schley County Board of Education voted to name the newly constructed consolidated school for blacks John Lewis High School. Another student of Lewis's during his first presidency was Cornelius Vanderbilt Troup, class of 1925, the first graduate of the college to earn a doctorate (Ohio State in 1947), and president from 1945 to 1966 of the Fort Valley State College (now University). Troup authored a book, Distinguished Negro Georgians, in the 1960s. For the centenary of Morris Brown in 1981, the board of trustees commissioned a formal history of the college from Dr. Troup in 1975. Troup passed in 1977, leaving the completion of Morris Brown College; the First Hundred Years to Dr. George V. Sewell, college minister and professor of religion. The Sewell-Troup history of Morris Brown contains a comprehensive account of the life of Rev. Dr. Lewis. Dr. Lewis's accomplishments, luminous in and of themselves, shine even brighter when viewed against the prevailing educational norms for African-American males in the Georgia Black Belt during his youth. The Black Belt was also the Cotton Belt. Black men there in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth were needed by and large to produce cotton under the sharecropper system that replaced slavery. Public schools offered grades 1-7 only, and schooling for most black males usually ended after 3rd or 4th grade. The rare black boy of financial means and ability could aspire to become a teacher or preacher by attending a private high school and college. John Henry Lewis became both. Education By the time Lewis was of school age, his family moved to Americus, although some Lewises continued to live in Schley County, according to the 1900 census. Some sources indicate that he began his schooling at Spring Hill School, which was associated with Spring Hill AME Church. In Americus, he would have attended elementary school at the old McCay Hill School, begun in 1884. For the secondary grades, he may have attended the private Americus Institute, founded 1897, or he may have attended Morris Brown's high school department. In any case, he received the B.A. degree from there in 1905. In 1913 he earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Yale University; a year later the University of Chicago conferred an M.A. degree on him. The AME institution, Wilberforce University, of Ohio, in recognition of Lewis's exceptional career bestowed the honorary degree Doctor of Laws on him in 1936. Career Following graduation from Morris Brown, Lewis found employment at the Payne Institute, an AME high school in the Southwest Georgia city of Cuthbert. Named principal, he would remain there until he left to attend Yale Divinity School and the University of Chicago. His departure from Payne coincided with the upgrading of Payne Institute to Payne College, one of four constituent institutions of the newly created Morris Brown University. William A. Fountain, Sr. conceived of this ambitious reorganization during his presidency of Morris Brown; it was formally instituted in 1913. John Lewis returned to teach at Morris Brown after leaving Chicago in 1914. He was, by turns, professor of literature, professor of education, and professor of sociology. Ordained in 1915, he also pastored Trinity AME Church during his Morris Brown faculty years. He married Eva Brown Walker of Americus in 1916. In 1918, Lewis and his bride moved to Pasadena, California, where he had been assigned to the pastorate of the First AME Church. When Fountain was elected to the AME bishopric in 1920, the young Rev. Lewis, aged 36, was recalled to Morris Brown to become its sixth president. Lewis's first administration saw tremendous physical and intellectual change at Morris Brown. Enrollment in the college department increased from 75 to 200 students. His administration purchased a former public school, located nearby at Boulevard and Irwin Street, to house Turner Theological Seminary and the high school department. According to a statement of Mrs. A. Urnestine Lewis, his second wife, President Lewis recruited many capable and specialized faculty members; implemented a teacher training program with practice teaching in Atlanta schools; and established a relationship with the General Education Board that would result in future financial support, among other attainments. The young C.V. Troup, who after graduation in 1925 had been named director of the commercial department, was named university accountant beginning in 1926 with responsibility for installing a standard bookkeeping system. By the mid-1920s, however, Morris Brown had begun to experience significant financial adversity as a result of two major factors: overexpansion, and the Great Migration of blacks from the South after World War I. The latter development reduced the membership of the AME church in Georgia, impairing its ability to support Morris Brown. In the circumstances, the university system-Morris Brown and Turner Seminary in Atlanta, Payne College in Cuthbert, and an industrial and normal institute in Savannah-proved rather burdensome. The university became indebted to faculty and employees it could not fully pay and to creditors. In 1928, with over $250,000 of indebtedness, the university filed bankruptcy. President Lewis resigned. He and his family went west again. He returned to the pulpit of the First AME Church of Pasadena, California, where he would remain only one year. From there he went to Little Rock, Arkansas to organize and lead with distinction the newly built Dunbar High School and Junior College, which would achieve full accreditation by the regional accrediting agency and become known as an outstanding example of its type in the nation. In recognition, Wilberforce University, of Ohio, conferred an honorary doctorate on him in 1936. Lewis's tenure at Dunbar ended in 1943. He served one year as president of the AME-supported Shorter College of North Little Rock before accepting the deanship of Payne Theological Seminary at Wilberforce, where he would remain for seven productive years. At Payne, Lewis erected a new building, raised academic standards, and increased enrollment. In 1951 Rev. Dr. Lewis returned to Morris Brown as its eighth president, bringing a background of "mature scholarship, prudent judgment and seasoned leadership," according to the Sewell-Troup history. Upon his return he initiated a study of all phases of the college's programs, which became the basis for upgrading the faculty, expanding and improving the physical plant, and raising overall academic standards. This broad- gauged effort would culminate in the college's receiving full accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1959, a year after Lewis's death. Family and Private Life, Demise Lewis was one of seven children, but by the time he passed in 1958 only a sister, Mazie Lewis Wingfield of Atlanta survived him. His first marriage to Eva Brown Walker yielded three sons-John, Jr., James Walker, and Milton Dunbar-and a daughter, Anita Adele. Eva Walker Lewis died in Little Rock, and Lewis later married A. Urnestine Bell of Atlanta in 1931. Their son, David, was born in 1936. Dr. Lewis was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and numerous other civic and social organizations. In Atlanta he was a member of Big Bethel AME Church. Lewis expired at Harris Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. The Atlanta Constitution story of his death, published October 4, 1958, and subsequent obituary list the surviving children as John H. Lewis, Jr. of New York City, David L. Lewis of London England, Milton D. Lewis of Omaha, Nebraska, James D. Lewis of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Anita McClinton of Chicago. Final rites were held at Big Bethel. Rev. Dr. Lewis and his second wife, Urnestine, are interred at Atlanta's oldest African- American cemetery-South-View-where Atlanta's most prominent black citizens have been laid to rest since 1886. In 1976 the Morris Brown trustees named a new sports facility the John H. Lewis Health-Physical Education-Recreation Complex. Addendum John Lewis was born in the Spring Hill community of Schley County. The writer recalls the late Mr. F.D. Harrold stating in school assembly that he was born "on the Oglethorpe Highway." The late Annie Aldridge Rumph, who taught in the elementary grades at John Lewis School, related that Lewis attended Spring Hill School—associated with Spring Hill AME Church—with her father. After the Lewises moved to Americus some family members joined Campbell Chapel AME Church, according to the Rev. J.R. Campbell, Sr., the late presiding elder and civil rights leader who knew some family members. Several Lewises still reside in Americus. In the spring of 2005 the writer exchanged e-mail messages with David Levering Lewis, youngest son of John Lewis. He forwarded this paper on Dr. John Lewis to David Lewis for comments. David Lewis is a noted historian whose two-volume biography of W.E.B. Du Bois won two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography. Now Distinguished Professor of History at New York University in New York City, Lewis is author of several other books, including King: A Biography. The professor recalled that his father always said there was considerable and protracted tension and conflict between Bishop William A. Fountain, Sr., chairman of the Morris Brown College board of trustees, and himself before his resignation in 1928 after the school filed bankruptcy for the first time. He remembered attending a dedication of the school in Ellaville with his father. Only one of his siblings, Milton Lewis of Omaha, Nebraska, survives. July 2006 David Levering Lewis Clarence D. White is a 1964 graduate of John Lewis High School, Ellaville. May 2004 E-mail: http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00030.html#0007419 http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/schley/bios/lewis.txt