Whether you fight in war or politics, James Lewis fought for the betterment of black people.
Born in 1832 or 1833 to a white plantation owner and an enslaved black woman, Lewis got here to New Orleans from Mississippi throughout the Civil War. He recruited black men into the Union Army and served as captain of Company K within the 1st Louisiana Native Guard, an all-black regiment.
In 1864, Lewis worked as an agent within the education department of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
“He traveled around the state, risking his life, in the interest of establishing schools for the newly freed brothers,” it states Creole Genealogical and Historical Society. “He held numerous positions of public trust throughout the Reconstruction period.”
As a federal customs inspector, Lewis became the primary black man to carry a federal civilian position within the state. He was elected police administrator. He served as a colonel within the Second Regiment of the State Militia, a naval officer within the port of New Orleans, and as commander of a department within the Grand Army of the Republic for Louisiana and Mississippi.
“Lewis stood firm in support of African American rights and maintained this stance even in the face of attack on Reconstruction,” Black past states. “When Democrats attempted to form a coalition with southern Black Republicans in 1873, Lewis met with other prominent African Americans to declare that ‘unification’ would only occur when Black people received full recognition of their civil and political rights.”
Lewis died in 1914 The Age of New York the obituary described him as having “the special charm of an old-school gentleman.” …The age has lost a good and faithful friend, and the Negro race an honest citizen who, in war and peace, at home and within the state, has done the work of an honest man.”
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