By Grant Hines<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NABJ Monitor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesse Lewis, founder of the Birmingham Times<\/a>, has been inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists\u2019 Hall of Fame. Lewis founded the weekly newspaper in 1964, the same year the Civil Rights Act was signed into law.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t no different than the average kid growing up,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cI wanted everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lewis, also a World War II veteran, has been president of Lawson Community College, a salesman for Coca-Cola, in addition to owning multiple properties throughout Birmingham. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Army, but after returning from World War II, he earned his diploma. He then enrolled at Miles College in Fairfield, Ala. where he chartered the Gamma Kappa chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the nation\u2019s oldest Black fraternity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can\u2019t imagine a journalism hall of fame without Lewis,\u201d said Barnett Wright, who Lewis hired several years ago as executive editor of the Birmingham Times. \u201cWho better to learn from than someone who\u2019s 98 years old, someone who founded this newspaper at the height of the civil rights movement.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The newspaper still operates in the original building that Lewis purchased in 1964 on 3rd Avenue in Birmingham\u2019s Ensley neighborhood. He never had plans to move from the small buildings and expand the publication, even though his original aspirations were to acquire a building downtown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m in a safe location,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cNobody\u2019s ever broke in this building. Nobody\u2019s ever done anything. I know the people across the street and they know me, and we need one another. That\u2019s important to me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lewis said journalists shouldn\u2019t forget those who helped them in their careers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou were put here to help somebody, and I don\u2019t forget that, whether they return it, don\u2019t worry about that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Birmingham Times continues its mission to inspire the next generation of Black journalists and Lewis laid the foundation for that to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s had a tremendous impact not only professionally as a business person, someone who knows journalism, but also personally who just tells all of these stories that he has encountered,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Grant Hines NABJ Monitor Jesse Lewis, founder of the Birmingham Times, has been inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists\u2019 Hall of Fame. Lewis founded the weekly newspaper in 1964, the same year […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[33],"class_list":{"0":"post-3125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nabj23","8":"tag-nabj"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3129,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125\/revisions\/3129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}