E’ry day this month, Philly’s 7th Ward, in partnership with the Center for Black Educator Development, will highlight a “Black Educator Hall of Famer.“ But, don’t forget, e’ry month is Black History Month. February is just the Blackest. Every day is an ongoing opportunity to learn and teach the colossal impact Black educators have had on society.
Violet Temple Lewis
Violet Temple Lewis was born on May 27, 1897, in Lima, Ohio. She was the second of six children. She graduated from Lima High School in 1915 and graduated from Wilberforce University in 1917. The next year, she took her first job as a secretary to the President of Selma University. From there, she worked as a bookkeeper for the Madame CJ Walker Company and then for the Indianapolis Record from 1920 to 1927.
During this time, she married Thomas Lewis (1920), and they had two children.
In all of her professional experience to that point, Lewis noticed something that bothered her. It was that there was a lack of Black secretaries. No matter where she went, she noticed the absence of Black faces behind desks. Lewis repeatedly said there should be a school to train Black women in the community for secretarial jobs, and one day her mother said, “Why don’t you stop talking about someone needing to start a school and start one yourself?”
In 1927, Lewis left the Indianapolis Recorder and began working for Indiana Avenue businessman Sea Ferguson, who proposed opening a secretarial school for African Americans. Inspired by her mother and supported by Ferguson, Lewis opened Lewis Business School on January 28, 1928. The first school was located in Indianapolis because she was using Ferguson’s facilities, but she eventually moved the school to her own home. It was the first predominantly Black institution of higher education.
Initially, tuition at the school was $2.50 per week, and 20-25 students enrolled. She continued to build her school’s enrollment by bartering tuition for childcare and evening meals. She also held a full-time job as a stenographer for the Indiana General Assembly, making her the first Black woman to do so. In 1932, to promote her school, she started a radio program called “The Negro Melody Hour,” making her the first Black radio announcer in Indiana.
Her show was a success, and so was her plan.
The show’s success increased her student enrollment and eventually made it so popular that she expanded to other cities, including Detroit. The Detroit facility was the U.S. Department of Education’s only designated historically Black college (HBCU) in Michigan. Lewis’s hard work transformed her school from a nine-month stenographic course to an accredited junior college:
“With the growing success in Detroit, Lewis closed the college in Indiana, thus giving her more time to concentrate on developing the curriculum and organizing the fundraising drives. In focusing on a variety of secretarial and bookkeeping skills, the college was a perfect conduit to job opportunities at the automobile companies in the city. For many years the college was a steady and reliable pipeline from school to jobs, and by 2003 more than 40,000 students had matriculated at the college.”
Although Lewis died in 1968, the school kept going under the leadership of Lewis’ daughters. In Detroit, the Lewis College of Business was officially designated a Historically Black University in 1987 and operated until 2015. In 2022, it reopened as the Pensole Lewis College of Business & Design.
Happy Black History Month, make sure to read up on Black Educator Hall of Famer, Violet Temple Lewis.
