Reginald Lewis was the first African-American businessman to build a billion-dollar company and considered one of the richest African-Americans in the 1980s. Before he died, Forbes magazine listed him as one of the 400 richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $400 million.
Lewis born was in 1942 in Baltimore, Maryland to a working-class family. He was heavily influenced by his family and their strong work ethic. At a very young age, Lewis’s grandmother taught him the value of saving money. Learning the habit of saving is crucial because nowadays most people don’t take saving seriously or haven’t learned this habit at any point in their lives causing bad administration of their finances. This wasn’t the case for Lewis; the knowledge and lessons Lewis’s family instilled in him helped him achieve success in the business world.
Lewis’s strong work ethic was evident when he was a kid when he started selling newspapers in his neighborhood. Within two years he already had more than 100 customers and decided to sell his delivery route for profit.
Education
Lewis attended Dunbar High School where he was recognized as a multi-sport athlete and a hard-working student. He played baseball, football, and basketball and was the captain in all three sports. On top of being a full-time student and athlete, he also held a job where he worked nights and weekends. After high school, he attended Virginia State University (VSU) on a football scholarship. After attending VSU, Lewis was accepted to Harvard Law School. What’s remarkable about his acceptance was, he was accepted without applying to Harvard. The Rockefeller Foundation had a summer school program at Harvard Law School that was offered to a select number of black students and Lewis was one of the few to be admitted. He made such a good impression, he was then invited and accepted to attend law school the following year. In the long history of Harvard, this was the first time a person was accepted without applying first. After Lewis graduated, he started working in corporate law at a prestigious New York law firm, and after a couple of years, he opened Wall Street’s first African-American law firm.
Career
Lewis’s desire to handle things on his own led him to establish TLC Group, LP in 1983. It was there he had his first successful venture, the $22.5 million leveraged buyouts of McCall Pattern Company. During the first year, there was a price war with McCall’s competitors, however, after the price war, Lewis’s operations increased marketing which caused McCall to have its two most profitable years in business. He then proceeded to sell the company for $65 million. Lewis was the first African-American to close an overseas billion dollar leveraged buyout deal, with TLC Beatrice International; reaching a conglomerate of 64 companies in 31 countries. He used this new company as an opportunity to make it easier for black employees to achieve jobs and develop their careers.
Besides working in corporate law, Lewis was also a philanthropist. He worked as an activist, supporting the civil rights movement, and also donated $3 million dollars to Harvard School. He used part of his wealth to support the African-American community and was one of the funding leaders of Jesse Jackson’s campaign. Lewis is recognized not only as America’s first African-American billionaire but also for his generous heart. One reason he achieved great success was due to the fact he always put his heart into everything he did.
Lewis’s career and life ended shortly after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Today his wife and two daughters keep his legacy alive and continue to support educational programs and organizations dedicated to underprivileged students. His daughter, Christina Lewis Halpern, a journalist at The Wall Street Journal, launched the All Star Code to honor her father. All Star Code is a non-profit organization that helps young men of color to navigate into the tech industry; the organization provides mentoring, training, etc.
Although Lewis only lived until he was 50, he accomplished more than many can achieve in a lifetime. I believe the most important piece of his legacy was the lesson he left us with, that success is not something we will achieve from day-to-day, it requires a lifetime of preparation, overcoming obstacles, never giving up, and building relationships. His work has inspired thousands of entrepreneurs by teaching them to never give up even when things get difficult or seem impossible at times along the way.
BH Nugget
I did not know much about Reginald Lewis until a few months ago. Thank you Mr. Nolan Code. Two attributes to his success were hard work and building relationships. There is no replacement for hard work. If you want something in life you really have to work hard to achieve it. It does not happen overnight. I consider myself to be a below average writer, however, I am writing often to become better at it. Now I am an author. Something that I never thought I would ever become. The other aspect of Mr. Lewis’s success was building relationships. He was living in a period when our country was battling civil rights issues but he was still able to build great relationships with people of many different colors and backgrounds, which helped create more opportunities for him.
Practice makes perfection and building relationships help to create opportunity.
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