Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? (12 page)

The future business titan was already adept at making hard-nosed decisions driven by monetary considerations. The lesson he’d learned from his mother when he went away to camp and demanded the profits of his paper route was now thoroughly ingrained. Set your terms up front and stick with them.

Afterward, whenever he saw McPherson, Lewis acted as though nothing had ever happened. As far as he was concerned, nothing had. Their disagreement wasn’t personal.

At Harvard Law School, as at Virginia State, Lewis frequently held forth over informal sessions where he and others discussed current events.

Although Harvard is known as very liberal, I sensed a real balance among the students. There were people on the left, right, and the center. The faculty was also pretty balanced. It seemed that regardless of the issue under discussion, you could always count on hearing several theories espousing an opposite point of view.

Reginald Lewis did few things in life that didn’t fit into some larger scheme. Chewing over the events of the day helped keep the gild on Lewis’s already golden tongue and kept his thought processes sharp. He knew that those skills, combined with a Harvard law degree, would make him a formidable package once he graduated. Plus, there was a part of him that was naturally curious about the world around him.

Every Friday he would scour the campus and rustle up five or six people whom Lewis deemed worthy of cultivating or worthy of his friendship. He would then accompany them to a restaurant on Harvard Square called the Wursthaus.

“He would ask if you were going to make it, with a look in his eye that he would be very disappointed if you weren’t there,” classmate Bill Slattery says. “He would pick the people that he wanted there and you would definitely talk about things that Reg wanted to talk about.”

During these gatherings, Lewis did a lot of listening while others did most of the talking. But it was clear that it was his party and he was in control. He arranged the seating, as “Picasso did his cubes,” according to Slattery. The topic of discussion was usually world events.

Wursthaus discussions were typically free of high-minded idealism or philosophical meanderings, for Lewis was nothing if not a pragmatist. Ideas were things that had utility and possessed value in an almost mercantile sense.

At Harvard, Lewis began contemplating a new avenue for achieving greatness. He talked to friends about pursuing a political career and entertained thoughts of going back to Maryland to get started. His reasoning was that Maryland represented a small political pond in which
to make a splash. Perhaps a bid for city councilman or state legislator? Not Reginald Lewis—he wanted to run for U.S. Senate.

Although he never made good on his political aspirations, he continued to talk about running for office even after he became a successful lawyer and businessman. Back in his Harvard days, Lewis discussed his political yearnings only with his white law school classmates—he never uttered a word to his black colleagues, who are invariably surprised to learn Lewis had any interest in politics.

During Lewis’s third year, he began working as a volunteer in a community legal assistance office with other Harvard law students. Most of Lewis’s clients were blue-collar whites with whom he interacted with ease.

Every Thursday night after working at the legal assistance office, Lewis would join Bill Slattery, who was also working there, and walk to Slattery’s apartment. Jill Slattery, a nurse, would then cook a meal of beef, mashed potatoes, and peas—the only food Jill ever cooked for Lewis and his sensitive stomach. Lewis would later tell friends that dining at the Slatterys was one of the few times at Harvard he enjoyed a good, home-cooked meal.

The three would usually drink an inexpensive bottle of wine along with their dinner. Against the backdrop of a huge map of Southeast Asia taped to the kitchen wall, the three frequently launched into spirited discussions of United States foreign policy in Vietnam.

Even during his days at Virginia State, Lewis was solidly against the Vietnam war. His objections were based on principle rather than fear of being drafted. When he registered for the draft after leaving Virginia State, the results of his physical examination showed that he was diabetic. His diabetes could be controlled through his diet, but Lewis was still classified 4F, meaning he was not fit for military service.

Lewis’s taste in music was relatively eclectic. He and roommate Bill Robinson both liked jazz and Lewis borrowed extensively from Robinson’s jazz collection. For his part, Robinson preferred to steer clear of Lewis’s records because Lewis liked many of the same older jazz artists that Robinson’s father liked.

Lewis augmented his jazz collection with recordings by Frank Sinatra, whom Lewis played frequently. When the other third-floor residents of 1751 Massachusetts Avenue climbed the stairs and heard strains of “Strangers in the Night” wafting through the hallway, that meant Lewis was home. Lewis was fond of calling himself the black Sinatra. Not that he could sing, which he most assuredly could not, but because Lewis admired Sinatra’s wealth, prestige, and rakish reputation.

Lewis actually had a close encounter with one of Sinatra’s pals and fellow stars, Sammy Davis, Jr. On one of the rare evenings when Lewis was not studying or working, he was watching late-night television and saw Davis lamenting that he had never finished his education. A few months later, after learning that Davis was doing a concert at a Boston nightclub, Lewis tracked down the hotel where Davis was staying.

Lewis called the hotel and got through to Davis. Lewis told Davis that he had seen him on television talking about his lack of formal education and invited Davis to sit in on a Harvard law class.

Davis replied that he was flattered and would have taken Lewis up on the offer had it not been for a scheduling conflict. However, would the young law student be interested in two free tickets to Davis’s show, as well as passes to go backstage and meet Davis afterward? That was just fine with Lewis.

Ask and you shall receive. It never occurred to Lewis not to call and chat with the internationally known Davis.

Lewis also wanted to meet Supreme Court Justice William Brennan when the jurist came to Harvard Law School as part of its 150th anniversary activities in 1967. So Lewis worked out a deal where he was able to pick Brennan up at Logan International Airport in Boston and serve as the Justice’s driver and host at Cambridge. Obstacles, barriers, pitfalls—those were things for the timid and the negative to dwell on. Lewis preferred to boldly seize the day.

He had a tremendous talent for talking himself into situations or places where he wanted to be. Years later, when Lewis was a practicing attorney in Manhattan, his brother Jean Fugett, Jr. was a tight end with the Dallas Cowboys and the Cowboys came to New York to play the Jets at Shea Stadium. It was a bitterly cold, blustery day, and Lewis and his stepfather, Jean Fugett, Sr., sat in box seats exposed to the elements as they watched the game. Lewis, who had his collar turned up
and no hat on, finally turned to his stepfather and said, “We gotta do better than this.”

Lewis hopped out of his seat and pointed in the direction of the press box. “Just follow me and act like you know where you’re going,” Lewis advised. He walked up the stadium’s concrete stairs, right past a policeman guarding the press box and marched inside as though he were William Randolph Hearst himself, with Jean, Sr. behind him. “Just act like you know where you’re going.” Words to live by for Reginald Lewis.

Lewis had always been this bold. When Jean Fugett got two tickets to the 1959 National Football League championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants—a contest called the greatest NFL game ever—Lewis was disappointed that his stepfather didn’t invite him. Fugett had given his other ticket to a co-worker who agreed to provide transportation for the 200-mile drive to New York City, in return for a chance to see the game.

Lewis convinced his stepfather that he could weasel his way into soldout Yankee Stadium if Fugett would let him tag along. Sure enough, the teenager put his negotiating skills to use and got himself a seat on the 30-yard line—giving him a much better view than that Jean Fugett had in the end zone.

In the summer of 1966, following my first year of law school, I went to Europe for the first time. I took a Harvard charter from Boston to Paris and back for about $200. I was there for four weeks and the experience changed my life. The moment I saw Paris it was
coup de foudre,
or love at first sight. I still get goose bumps when I see Paris. I also spent time visiting Switzerland, Germany, Amsterdam, and Denmark before returning to Paris. Europe was crowded with students that summer and I had lots of interesting encounters.

Lewis’s love of France had its origins in the stories his grandfather, Sam Cooper, frequently told. Cooper had been in the Army in World War I with an all-black division and he had fought in France. He spoke fondly about Paris and of how black U.S. servicemen were treated with
dignity and respect by the French, in contrast to the behavior of some white Americans. Lewis became a lifelong Francophile.

While in Paris, Lewis befriended a young Scandinavian artist named Helge Strufe. In a stunt typical of the young and carefree, Strufe had run out of money in one of the Western Hemisphere’s most expensive cities. Lewis, who was hardly flush with cash himself, lent Strufe some money and even let the artist spend a night in his hotel room.

When Lewis went to Amsterdam he looked up the grateful Strufe, who invited Lewis to stay at his apartment. Strufe had covered one wall of his dwelling with exquisite watercolors Lewis admired. Lewis arranged for some of Strufe’s paintings to be shipped to Harvard, where they were displayed. Strufe also sold some of his works to Lewis at a discount. Later in life, Lewis would be the proud owner of a magnificent art collection worth millions of dollars but Strufe’s paintings represented his first acquisition of works of art.

Prior to his first trip to the continent, Lewis was beginning to develop a cosmopolitan side and the journey to Europe further whet his appetite for the finer things in life.

After my second year in law school, I landed a summer job with the law firm of Piper & Marbury in Baltimore. It was a terrific firm and a great summer. Mr. Marbury was a really big name in the law and, in Maryland generally. I also met a lawyer named Matt DeVito, who was a young partner. Matt took a special interest in me and we had some talks about the law, politics, and life in general.

Matt was disappointed when I did not come back to Baltimore after my third year; however, the lure of New York was irresistible. But more about that later.

Naturally, Lewis’s job prospects after law school were a major concern. Once, he broached a job option that struck classmate Roger Lowenstein as “optimistically naive.” He suggested to Lowenstein that they both move to New York City after graduation and start an interracial law firm. Lowenstein, who lived in the New York area, was
intimidated by the thought of trying to tackle the Big Apple with no legal experience.

“He was from Baltimore and just felt that he could do pretty much whatever he wanted to or felt like,” Lowenstein says incredulously. In the not too distant future, Lewis would establish his own law firm in New York City, and an interracial one at that!

By the time Lewis’s last set of final exams rolled around in 1968, he was weary of the law school routine. He called his mother and complained to her that his exams were scheduled so close to each other that he couldn’t study effectively. He wanted badly to do well in his last semester.

Characteristically, Lewis took action. He strode into the dean’s office to ask if he could get his exam schedule changed. His request was denied, but Lewis was told that if it were any consolation, Harvard had yet to lose a third-year student.

By spring semester of the third year of law school, everyone was ready to get out into the real world. The events of the year were just extraordinary—Lyndon Johnson not running for President, Eugene McCarthy’s army of college volunteers, the King and Kennedy assassinations. It was really too much.

During the fall semester of my final year, I and other law students got involved in third-year interviews, an annual ritual where legal recruiters come to campus looking for prospective employees. Piper & Marbury, the Baltimore law firm where I had worked after my second year, had yet to make me an offer. Although I knew Matt DeVito would be pushing hard for me within the firm, I decided it would be best to test the waters just in case.

The choicest jobs were considered to be those with large New York firms. I picked out a few that interested me and began interviewing. I went to most of these interviews feeling pretty relaxed. I felt that even if I didn’t get a single offer, I could always return to Baltimore, work in the state attorney’s office or the U.S. Attorney’s office for a few years, then begin my own law practice. But the prospect of cutting my teeth in one of the “great firms” appealed to me.

One of the firms I signed up to interview with was Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The decision turned out to be a good one. I met with Bill De Wind, one of the top partners in the firm, and
we had a terrific interview. He was very relaxed, asked a lot of good questions and was not the least bit racist or condescending in his approach, which at that time was the exception rather than the rule. At the end of the interview, Bill described how his firm assessed applicants and said the next step was for me to come down to New York and visit with some of his partners and associates.