A devout Catholic, a gifted newspaper columnist and poet, Ora Mae Lewis Martin was on a mission to desegregate the Catholic church and to get voting rights for Black people. 

Ora Mae Lewis Martin discussing her novel “Seeds in the Wind.” Credit: Youtube

Born in New Orleans on March 29, 1918, Martin challenged the church to end segregation by writing “A Letter to the Archbishop” in the Sepia Socialite on July 23, 1938. That same year, according to Black Past, Black Catholics were integrated into the New Orleans church during the International Eucharistic Congress.

After reading her Sepia Socialite serial story in January 1940, “Black Hands and Yellow Cheeks,” U.S. Sen. Allen Ellender from New Orleans had a rant on the Senate floor. Ellender, who was against Black voting rights, argued that Lewis’ story – and books like it  – would inspire Black people in Louisiana to register to vote.

“She was a tireless worker for interracial harmony,” Creole Genealogical and Historical Association (CreoleGen) states, “and never hesitated to articulate the longings of her people for equality.”

Martin was 9 years old when her first article, “The First Christmas,” was published in The Times-Picayune in 1927. In addition to writing for Sepia Socialite, a Black newspaper, Martin wrote for the Louisiana Weekly and Catholic publications.

In 1944, Martin and her fiancé, Lawrence, launched the weekly magazine, “Twinkle,” which was popular with military men and young women. Each week, according to CreoleGen, the magazine featured a cover girl – “some winsome, smiling face selected from among the fair maidens of the Crescent City.”

Married to Lawrence in 1946, Martin had seven children and stopped publishing Twinkle in 1949. She had not published anything for 50 years, when she released her final work, “Seeds in the Wind: A Historical Novel Louisiana (1565-1865)” in August 2000.

Martin was 87 when she died in New Orleans on Sept. 28, 2005.

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Tammy C. Barney is an award-winning columnist who spent most of her career at two major newspapers, The Times-Picayune and The Orlando Sentinel. She served as a bureau chief, assistant city editor, TV...