Reginald F Lewis Essay

Reginald F. Lewis was an African-American lawyer, businessman, author, and philanthropist. Lewis was a larger than life figure in the business world. His intelligence, determination, and tenacity to all his endeavors and set a standard for excellence that endures to this day. His life story brought him to the city of Baltimore, to the highest reaches of finance in Wall Street. When he passed away at the age of 50 from brain cancer in 1993, Forbes magazine put him on its list of the wealthiest Americans with a net worth of about $400 million. The accomplishment would have been remarkable for anyone for anyone, but for an African-American, it was historic. Lewis showed his experience for business at the age of 10. In 1952, a 10 year old Reginald F. Lewis organized a newspaper route in his Baltimore, Maryland, neighborhood. Over the years, he built his business from 10 customers to an almost billion dollar company.

Lewis is my Man of Courage because he was a fearless and intelligent African-American. He was intelligent enough to graduate from Harvard Law School (one of the best law schools in the country), even though he was an African-American. He was intelligent and fearless, when he bought the TLC Group (a capital investment firm), and then sold it for $65 million 3 years later. He wasn’t scared when he acquired Beatrice International Foods, and making the company the largest African-American owned and managed business in the U.S. Lewis was also a caring and compassionate man. In 1987, Lewis established The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, which funded grants of approximately $10 million to various non-profit programs and organizations. In 1992, he donated $3 million to Harvard Law School, the largest grant at the time in the law school's