Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? (50 page)

“The day before Mr. Lewis died, I saw his mother look kind of sad,” Lucien Stoutt says. “I could see something was wrong from the expression on her face.”

Butch Meily was given permission to notify the press that Reginald Lewis had brain cancer, was in a coma, and the prior week had created an office of the chairman to be headed by Jean Fugett, Jr.

The next day, Tuesday, January 19th, a doctor checked Lewis, turned to the assembled family members and said, “His pulse is going.” Everyone present, including Lewis’s wife and mother gathered around his bed. Loida Lewis recited the Twenty-Third Psalm aloud, “The Lord is my shepherd,” she started and continued to the end of the psalm. Then she whispered, “You may go now, my darling. I love you.”

“Everybody was crying, including me,” James Cooper says. Just then, the fire alarm sounded. Carolyn Fugett said in a loud voice, “The angels are welcoming him in heaven.” Reginald Lewis was dead at the age of 50.

Cooper and Tony Fugett were responsible for getting Lewis’s remains from New York to Baltimore for burial. Lewis would have gotten a chuckle out of the stunt they pulled to get his body out of the hospital without being detected by the press. They’d bribed an elevator operator to allow Fugett to accompany Lewis’s temporary casket to the ground floor via the back elevator.

Acting as a decoy, Cooper went out the front door and hopped into a waiting limousine to draw away any reporters or photographers that might be lurking out front. As soon as the limo pulled away from the curb, Cooper ordered it to go to the rear of the hospital, where the casket was loaded into a hearse. Then Cooper and Fugett followed the hearse from Manhattan to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

Cooper and Fugett were both impressed by what they saw next: The crew of Lewis’s aircraft had washed and waxed his plane to a mirror-like sheen. Even the landing gear and the tires were gleaming. “The plane was immaculate and the crew was impeccably dressed, like Reg would have wanted it,” Fugett recalls. Several seats had been removed to accommodate Lewis’s casket, which was placed gingerly, almost reverently, inside Lewis’s beloved private jet. Fugett and Cooper, who had never flown before, boarded after the casket was loaded and flew off in a southerly direction. Their destination was Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

When the plane landed, a hearse was already on the tarmac, waiting to take Lewis’s body to March Funeral Home in West Baltimore. Loida Lewis, who had never left her husband’s side since she arrived from Paris last December, had asked Tony Fugett to stay with her husband until she arrived in Baltimore. The funeral home was devastatingly cold at night because its automatic thermostat couldn’t be overridden. Cooper also stayed, because Fugett asked him to.

Lewis’s many uncles took turns standing at his side, keeping him company, from January 19 until January 23, the day of his funeral and burial.

Dressed warmly to fend off a biting winter wind, relatives, friends, and those merely wishing to pay homage to a remarkable man began trickling into St. Edward’s Roman Catholic Church in Baltimore around 9:50
A.M
. on Saturday, January 23, 1993. The wake for Reginald Francis Lewis was scheduled for 10
A.M
., with a Mass of Christian Burial to follow an hour later. St. Edward’s is on Poplar Grove Street in Northwest Baltimore, literally around the corner from Mosher Street and the house and community that Lewis called home.

As the limousine carrying Loida, Leslie, and Christina Lewis glided up to the front of St. Edward’s, Leslie Lewis felt compelled to remind her mother of something: “Okay, Mommy,” said Reginald Lewis’s oldest daughter, who had flown down from Harvard in the middle of taking exams. “We are the Lewis women.”

In front of her husband’s open casket, Loida Lewis greeted mourners with a firm handshake and a smile, belying her profound sorrow and sense of loss. She chose to submerge her pain and console others, instead of the other way around.

I had written a lengthy piece about Reginald Lewis for
USA Today
following his death and really didn’t have to attend his funeral, because no coverage had been planned by my paper. Nor had I been tabbed to write this book. But I put on a tie and went anyway. I wasn’t present when Jackie Robinson or Frederick Douglass were laid to rest, but figured I could at least tell my grandchildren I was at Reginald Lewis’s funeral. Here was a fellow African-American from Baltimore
who grew up in a neighborhood not far from mine and clawed his way to the summit of a billion-dollar business empire.

When I walked past Lewis’s casket, Loida Lewis greeted me warmly, even though we had never been introduced. I was disappointed that an opportunity to meet Reginald Lewis when he was alive had never materialized, and thus chose not to view his body.

Loida, Leslie, and Christina all spoke before the overflow crowd gathered inside St. Edward’s Catholic Church with dry eyes, conviction and strong, clear voices, as did all of Lewis’s family members, including his mother, Carolyn Fugett.

Christina Lewis began by reading a passage from the Bible, the Book of Wisdom,
Chapter Four
, Verses 7-14: “The just man, though he die early, shall be at rest. For the age that is honorable comes not with the passing of time, nor can it be measured in terms of years. Rather, understanding is the hoary crown for men, and an unsullied life the attainment of old age. . . . Having become perfect in a short while, he reached the fullness of a long career, for his soul was pleasing to the Lord. Therefore, he sped him out of the midst of wickedness, but the people saw and did not understand, nor did they take this into account.”

Leslie Lewis took a different tack: “My father never stopped moving forward, no matter what fate threw in his way. Whether racial stereo-types that would hamper him in his business, racial bias and prejudice, no matter what the world threw him, he didn’t let it stop him. . . . As we traveled to the church this morning, we had a police escort. In their urgency, they stopped traffic at intersections and they played sirens, and I thought, ‘Wow! They’re really making a lot of noise.’ Then I thought, ‘My God, yes! Let them make noise. Let there be a commotion. Let there be a loud noise because we are sending off a great man today.’”

Finally, Loida Lewis spoke of a love that death would never dimish: “The foundation on which Reginald F. Lewis grew up is a foundation based on love. Not the love we see on television or the love in which you say, ‘I love you,’ and then forget it the next day. No! It’s the love that St. Paul talks about in his letter to the Corinthians. Love that is patient, hopeful, expecting. Not nagging. It is love that is kind, not hurting with your tongue. It is love that is not conceited, or self-centered, or ego-based. It is not selfish; nor does it keep a record of
wrongs. . . . True love never gives up. Its faith, its hope, its patience endures. So my darling, you had it in your early life, and I tried to give it to you in our marriage. I have loved you without conditions, without reservations. My love for you will never end.”

Among those who sent messages of condolence was newly inaugurated president Bill Clinton. “Hillary and I are deeply saddened to learn of your husband’s death,” Clinton wrote. “Reginald Lewis’s commitment to excellence, his life of achievement and his deep concern for his fellow man were an inspiration to me and to all who knew him.”

“His generosity was boundless, enriching the lives of people around the world. We will miss him. You and your family are in our thoughts and in our prayers.”

Bill Cosby wrote: “Reggie Lewis is to me, not was, is to me what Joe Louis is to me. What Jackie Robinson is to me. Regardless of race, color, or creed, we are all dealt a hand to play in this game of life. And believe me, Reg Lewis played the hell out of his hand.”

Lewis was eulogized by his friend and soon-to-be head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Dr. Ben Chavis. Those in the church laughed heartily as Chavis recounted how he and Lewis had gone to North Carolina to fight school desegregation, and Lewis had had the moxie to ask a uniformed, white Southern sheriff to display identification.

Buried with Lewis at New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore are a box of his cherished Monte Cristo cigars, a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne—vintage 1985—and a graphite tennis racquet, should he encounter an old tennis foe in the great beyond.

A few days after the funeral, a memorial service was held for Lewis in Manhattan, at the Riverside Church in Harlem. Among those who addressed the 2,000 or so people in attendance were New York Mayor David Dinkins, Texaco Chairman James W. Kinnear, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Harvard Law School Dean Robert C. Clark. Opera star and friend, Kathleen Battle sang “Amazing Grace,” Lea Salonga, who was starring in the Broadway musical “Miss Saigon,” gave a rendition of “The Quest” (The Impossible Dream), and the Harlem Boys Choir—a benefactor of Lewis’ philanthropy—also performed.

Looking back on the incredible life and times of Reginald F. Lewis, one of his favorite poems seems particularly appropriate. Written by Langston Hughes, it’s titled, “Mother to Son”:

*
Used with permission by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who graciously agreed to talk to me about Reginald Lewis. Whether your name appears or not, you helped me draw a bead on a complex and fascinating man:

Mark Alcott

Earle Angstadt

Lee Archer

Jack Auspitz

Paulette Bacote-McAlily

Al Banks

Jean Baud

Robert Bell

Richard Brown

Tom Bourelly

Bill Cammer

Ben Chavis

Cleve Christophe

Robert Clark

Charles Clarkson

Elaine Cole Lewis

Mary Coleman

Alan Colon

James Cooper

Robert Cooper, Sr.

Samuel Cooper

Robert Davenport

Clarence David

Guy DeBrantes

Richard Dehe

Mathias DeVito

Lucious Edwards

Peter Eikenberry

Dominique Fargue

Hughlyn Fierce

Carolyn Fugett

Jean Fugett, Jr.

Jean Fugett, Sr.

Anthony Fugett

Joseph Fugett

Reg Gilliam

Elzee Gladden

Ellis Goodman

Reynaldo Glover

Everett Grant

John Green

Ed Gregg

Bryant Gumbel

Lynwood Hart

Norma Jean Harvey

John Hatch

Ray Haysbert

Dan Henson

Bob Hermann

Bertrand Hill

Duane Hill

James Hoyte

Ford Johnson

Orlan Johnson

Amalya Kearse

Joerg Klebe

Remmert Laan

Tom Lamia

Connie Langford

Diana Lee

Ray LeFlore

Christina Lewis

Loida Lewis

Arthur Liman

Louis Loss

Roger Lowenstein

Howard Mackey

Pedro Massanet

James McPherson

Richard McCoy

Butch Meily

George Miles

Michael Milken

Don Moore

Kermit Morgan

Laurie Nelson

Imelda Nicolas

Hanley Norment

Peter Offerman

Ricardo Olivarez

Sam Peabody

Carolyn Powell

Leonard Quigley

Delores Quiller

Timothy Roberson

Bill Robinson