Whether fighting in war or in 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 came to New Orleans from Mississippi during the Civil War. He recruited Black men for the Union Army and served as Company K captain in the 1st Louisiana Native Guard, an all-Black regiment.

In 1864, Lewis worked as an agent in the Freedmen’s Bureau’s education department.

“He traveled the state at much risk to his own life in the interest of establishing schools for newly freed brethren,” states the Creole Genealogical and Historical Association. “Throughout the period of Reconstruction, he held numerous positions of public trust.”

As a federal customs inspector, Lewis became the first Black man to have a federal civil position in the state. He was elected as a police force administrator. He served as a colonel in the Second Regiment of the State Militia, a Naval officer of the Port of New Orleans, and as department commander of the Grand Army of the Republic for Louisiana and Mississippi.

“Lewis was a strident voice for the rights of African Americans and maintained this stance even as Reconstruction was under attack,” the Black Past states. “When Democrats sought to create a coalition with southern Black Republicans in 1873, Lewis came together with other prominent African Americans to declare that ‘unification’ would only happen when Black people were given full recognition of their civil and political rights.”

Lewis died in 1914. A New York Age obituary described him as having “the peculiar charm of the gentleman of the old school. …The Age has lost a good and faithful friend and the Negro race an honest citizen who, in war and in peace, in home and in the state, did an honest man’s work.” 

For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.

Most Read Stories

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Creative Commons License

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...