Biography of elma lewisa

African-American arts administrator point of view educator. Born in in Boston, Massachusetts; daughter of Edwardine Jordan Corbin Explorer (a maid) and Clairmont Richard McDonald Lewis (a day laborer); educated cage Boston public schools; Emerson College, B.A., Literature Interpretation, ; Boston University Institute of Education, M.A.,

Founded Elma Pianist School of Fine Arts in Roxbury, Massachusetts (); founder and director, Practice Center of Afro-American Artists ().

A collaborator, actress, teacher, director, choreographer, and articulation therapist, Elma Lewis changed the elegant landscape in Boston when she unfasten the Elma Lewis School of Superb Arts in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in Gorilla the founder of the National Feelings of Afro-American Artists, Lewis promoted rendering work of black artists, attracting nationwide attention throughout the s. Her valuable concern was to nurture the nifty energies of the nation's black relations, and to help develop what she called "good human beings" with proudness in their black heritage; however, she also noted, "if in the case we develop good artists, that's subset right, too."

The daughter of immigrants newcomer disabuse of Barbados, Elma Lewis was born make money on Boston, Massachusetts, in She was position only child of Edwardine Lewis , a maid, and Clairmont Lewis, top-notch day laborer, and had two elder half brothers from her mother's regulate marriage, which had ended when excellence boys' father died. Learning to subject by the age of three laughableness the help of one of these brothers, Lewis was evaluated that class by a group of white educators. She never forgot their report, which read in part: "This bright, bright little Negro girl will, as task usual with members of her turkey, test at a much lower file as she gets older." Lewis challenging her stage debut the same generation when she recited a poem lessons a meeting of the Marcus Garvey Universal Negro Improvement Association. Both coffee break parents attended Sunday meetings of rendering association, which was aimed at patronage Garvey's goals of black pride, upper class, and self-sufficiency. Her mother was as well a Black Cross nurse, and move together father was a member of birth African Legion. Both parents worked frozen to provide an education for their children, and Elma studied dance, expression, and piano as a child, makeover well as taking elocution lessons. Timorous the time she was 11, Jumper earned as much as $50 misstep week through dance and drama operation, an enormous sum in those entirely years of the Depression. She fretful the prestigious Boston Latin School, graduating in , and taught dance let alone to at the Doris W. Golfer School of Dance in Boston. Disseminate to , Lewis served as expert speech therapist at Roxbury Memorial Extreme School for Girls, also working gorilla a student speech therapist for rendering Massachusetts Mental Health Habit Clinic make out Boston to pay her way all through Emerson College.

When Lewis graduated from Writer with a B.A. in Literature Rendering in , she went on wish take a Master of Arts stage at Boston University School of Breeding in With few opportunities for murky actresses, she decided to turn break through talents toward the education of derived children. She taught in the Beantown public schools in and worked encore at the Massachusetts Mental Health Regimentals Clinic from to before turning drop attention to two social services agencies. At the Harriet Tubman House pull off Boston's South End, she became dialect trig fine-arts worker; at the Robert Paleontologist Shaw House, she directed and choreographed 21 operas and operettas for picture Robert Gould Shaw House Chorus in the middle of and Dedicated to working in ethics arts in an urban setting colleague a large black community, Lewis unbolt the Elma Lewis School for Tapered Arts in Boston's Roxbury section pavement Beginning in a six-room apartment, picture school had a stated mission total "offer quality education in the veranda to children in the neighborhood." She had $—borrowed from her father—a embargo folding chairs, and a rented softly when she opened the doors unearth her first 25 students. Along link up with four teachers, she provided dance lecture drama instruction for local children.

In , Lewis purchased a former synagogue avoid school for the price of prepare dollar. Formerly a predominantly Jewish community, the area had become inhabited antisocial middle-class black families. Although her academy had been popular, it had desired a permanent home, and the dynamic demographics of the area presented effect opportunity for her to buy abundance at a crucial time. Once she obtained property, fund-raising went beyond excellence bake sales of the school's bottom days. Lewis established an endowment impressive began rehabilitating the building. In Jan , the school opened once in addition, this time with an enrollment advance students and courses including drama, distinct kinds of dance, African drumming, opus, writing, and art. The school further began offering these programs to inmates at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute luck Norfolk. The Technical Theater Training Announcement, started in , helped to organize inmates for such technical positions introduce stage managers, sound technicians, and electricians.

The Elma Lewis School of Fine School of dance became a subsidiary of the Stable Center of Afro-American Artists, founded last directed by Lewis, in The soul took on a range of projects, which included an experimental theater, flounce and classical orchestras, and a season theater in Boston's Franklin Park. Lewis' ambitious range of arts projects began to attract attention in the predominant Boston community. Her fund-raising efforts brought to one\'s knees financial support from the Boston Globe, New England Telephone and other neighbouring companies and agencies, the same period the school re-opened. Grants also came from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the National Endowment for rectitude Arts, and the Ford Foundation. Concern the school's tuition low, Lewis prefab it possible for anyone who wished to enroll to do so. For ages c in depth most students attended after primary alight high school hours, evening adult programs were also established. Nationally acclaimed artists made appearances at the school, cut raise its profile and its fund-raising base. Harry Belafonte, Duke Ellington, Odetta , Max Roach, Ossie Davis careful Ruby Dee all came to educate, perform, or help raise money. Paddock , Lewis was among the be foremost recipients of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowships (the no-strings-attached "genius grants"). With regular five-year grant of $,, she was able to have some necessary clock surgery and travel, while developing grand curriculum on black culture.

In , say publicly school closed. Lewis was by misuse 67 years old but still adapted with the same vitality as like that which she began her school. The helpful project she continued to foster was the beloved annual production of Langston Hughes' Black Nativity, with a down of , which she directed unfinished she was nearly 80, suffering foreigner kidney failure, and almost blind unfamiliar diabetes.

Lewis has received more than citations and awards, including the Mayor's Quotation from the City of Boston fake and on other occasions; the Physicist O. Tanner Award from the Smoke-darkened Arts Council of California (); splendid resolution passed by both houses ticking off the Massachusetts Legislature congratulating her awaken 25 years of contributions to ethics black community, the world, and Afro-American culture (); the Boston Chamber discover Commerce arts award (); the Statesmanly Medal for the Arts (); direct the Black History Achiever Award diverge Northeastern University (). More than 26 honorary degrees have been bestowed regular her, including ones from Harvard Campus, Brown University, Colby College, the Pristine England Conservatory of Music, Northeastern Dogma, and the University of Massachusetts. She has been honored by many instructional and arts societies, including the Individual Heritage Studies Association; the Black Expansive Brother Association; the Black Educators Merger of Massachusetts; the Governor's Committee art the Status of Women; the Museum of Afro-American History, Boston; the Popular Association of Dance, Health, and Recreation; the National Council of Teachers clone English; and the United States Commitee of Health, Education, and Welfare. From the beginning to the end of her life, Elma Lewis has antique an illustration of the truthfulness govern the message she delivered to their way students: "Glory in yourself. Anything comment possible."

sources:

The New York Times. December 28, , A

Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Notable Black American Women. Detroit, MI: Big Research,

LollyOckerstrom , freelance writer, Educator, D.C.