Ailey William Lewis (1911)
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Description
Born circa 1880 to Joseph H. Lewis and Cordelia Bradley Lewis, Ailey William Lewis (1911) spent his formative years in the boroughs outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended high school in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. He married his wife, Mary L. Simmons, in 1902. At some point, Lewis sought out a postsecondary education at Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. Then, he and his wife moved to Denver sometime between 1902 and 1907, when he published a poem entitled “A Summer Day in San Lus [sic] Valley” in The Statesman, a Black newspaper from Denver.
He likely entered law school in 1909, during a time when Colorado was one of the most prestigious programs at the law school. He graduated from law school in 1911 and took the bar in Denver. He seemed to have passed the bar as he began advertising his practice in local Black newspapers. His Denver practice was successful for five years when “he had to abandon his practice” circa 1916 because of health issues.
Sometime between closing his Denver practice and 1919, Lewis and his wife moved from Denver to Omaha, Nebraska. There, Lewis was an active member of the Black community: he participated regularly in the local NAACP chapter; gave lectures; and wrote for The Monitor, a weekly Black newspaper. He was admitted into the Nebraska Bar in 1919 and, in 1921, opened a law office on the south side of Omaha. Lewis maintained connections in Omaha, even after he moved northward to Sioux City, Iowa.
In 1925, Lewis married Betty Pride Jackson of Sergeant Bluff, Iowa. In 1940, the U.S. Census showed that Lewis and his wife Betty were living in Sioux City, Iowa. Lewis was working as a janitor. He died nine years later in 1949. Research into Lewis’s life is ongoing.
Publication Date
1911
Recommended Citation
Ciota, Rebecca, "Ailey William Lewis (1911)" (1911). Black History at Colorado Law. 9.
https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/black-history/9