Lewis, Alfred Baker, 1897-1980
Dates
- Existence: 1897-1980
Biographical Statement
Alfred Baker Lewis was a White insurance executive, lawyer, polemicist, and champion of improved race relations in the United States. A member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1924 until his death in 1980, Lewis also served as a member of that organization's board of directors since 1939 and as the NAACP Treasurer from 1958 to 1972.
Lewis completed his undergraduate studies and law school at the University of Pennsylvania. Lewis served in the Navy during World War I. He was the Secretary of the Massachusetts Socialist Party from 1924 to 1940, and he twice ran as a Socialist candidate for the United States Senate, in 1926 and 1928, and as Socialist candidate for Governor of Massachusetts several times in the 1930s.
The author of several essays and pamphlets on economics and race, and particularly the economic impact of racial discrimination, Lewis was also a tireless advocate of his ideas through letters to the editor, which he had published in newspapers throughout the country. Lewis appeared before committees of the state legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut on behalf of labor and social security laws and civil rights legislation. In addition, he drew up the first bill for unemployment insurance ever presented to the Massachusetts State Legislature.
Lewis died in 1980 at the age of 83 when he was struck and killed by a train in Connecticut. The NAACP board of directors eulogized Lewis as a "rare man who was a humanist and a most effective and articulate spokesman for civil rights."