CLARENCE OSCEOLA LEWIS SR.
Clarence Osceola Lewis Sr. was an outlier amongst the Charter initiates of Alpha Chapter. Born on July 31, 1882, Lewis was the oldest initiate selected among the Charter members of Alpha Chapter at 29 years of age when Alpha Chapter was established on December 15, 1911. In fact, Lewis was a year older than advisor and founder, Professor Ernest Everett Just, who was born in 1883. This elder statesman of Alpha Chapter brought another unique distinction among the initial members of Alpha Chapter: he was married. Lewis married Rosa Anna Piper, a 1904 graduate of the famed M Street High School, on November 27, 1907, at the historic 15th Street Presbyterian Church by famed theologian Rev. Francis James Grimke. Lewis’ final distinction is that of father. His first child was born during his senior year at Howard on September 30, 1912, less than a year after the founding of Omega.
This seasoned son of The Mother Pearl was the eighth of nine children born to William Henry Lewis and Lucinda (Jones) Lewis in Washington, D.C. Lewis’ parents were born into slavery in the early 1840s and could not read or write. Both parents held domestic positions, with Lewis’ father as a waiter and his mother as a laundress. Despite their background and position, they raised their children with a sense of achievement, as at least three were educators, including Lewis. He graduated from Washington High School in 1901 and passed the entrance exam to Washington Normal School #2, located at 13th& K St., NW, for further secondary training as a teacher. He was part of a class of 37 that received their teaching certificate from Normal School #2 on June 12, 1903. Upon receiving his teaching certificate, Lewis began what would be a long and distinguished teaching career, initially serving as an elementary school teacher at Daniel A. Payne, Elijah P. Lovejoy, and John M. Langston Schools in D.C. from 1903 to 1909.
In the fall of 1909, Lewis entered Howard University as part of its historic freshmen class in the College of Arts & Sciences. Besides Founders Coleman, Cooper, and Love being his classmates, six founders of Delta Sigma Theta and two founders of Kappa Alpha Psi were Lewis’ freshmen classmates. Additionally, seven other members of this class would be initiated as members of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity before they graduated in 1913, three of which were Charter initiates. Lewis saved money while attending Howard by living with his in-laws off 16th St., NW, on Kalorama Road. Amazingly, he continued to teach school while attending Howard during his freshman year in 1909-10. Given Lewis’ domestic responsibilities, his involvement with extracurricular activities at Howard was limited. On June 4, 1913, Lewis graduated from Howard at the top of his class, along with Mary Edna Brown (the future Mrs. Frank Coleman), magna cum laude with a BA degree.
After completing his undergraduate work at Howard, Lewis resumed his teaching career at the D.C. public schools, teaching the elementary grades at the Blache K. Bruce, John F. Slater, Henry Wilson, and Ft. Slocum Schools. In October 1915, Howard University tapped Lewis to teach geometry and trigonometry part-time. At the same time, Lewis shifted his public school teaching from day to night classes as future honorary Omega Man Garnet Wilkerson, who was principal of the Armstrong Manual Training School, selected him to teach mathematics and English at Armstrong’s Night School in D.C. Unbeknownst to Lewis, the shift to night school would foreshadow things to come.
While Lewis’ tenure at Howard ended in 1919, his greatest mark in Omega occurred during his teaching years at Howard. In 1918, with World War I raging in Europe, the War Department realized it was woefully unprepared for military officer training. In response, in the summer of 1918, it established the Student Army Training Corps (SATC), which provided 6-8 weeks of military training to college men on their respective campuses. The War Department commissioned Howard University to host an instructor’s military training camp for African American faculty and students of HBCUs to support the SATC initiative on HBCU campuses (training of the trainer). This instructors' camp was set to start on August 1, 1918, and included over 450 African American faculty and students from 70 colleges and universities, primarily HBCUs. On the heels of the success of the War Chapter at Ft. Des Moines a year earlier and realizing the opportunity presented of having such a diverse group of Black men concentrated on Howard’s campus, The Grand Chapter appointed Lewis and Julius Albert Thomas Jr. (Alpha 1916) to investigate the feasibility of organizing a temporary Chapter, similar to the War Chapter, at this camp. They reported favorably and were assigned the task of selecting possible candidates for initiation. After a few days, Lewis and Thomas provided thirty names for consideration, of which 28, 22 students and 6 faculty members composed from nine different colleges and universities, were initiated into the fold of Omega at the Alpha Chapter Fraternity House at 322 T St., NW on the evening of Sunday, September 1, 1918. This series of actions planted the seeds of the largest growth in Omega’s history from the Camp Howard Chapter, as it was called, Delta (1919), Zeta (1919), Eta (1919), Kappa (1920 at West Virginia Collegiate Institute), and Rho (1921) Chapters were established almost tripling the number of Chapters in the Fraternity. An ironic byproduct of the Camp Howard Chapter occurred personally for Lewis. One of the initiates he selected, Rudolph Melville Wyche from then Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University), went on to marry his niece, Kellene Lewis, in 1930.
Aside from Omega, Lewis became a member of a popular social organization in 1913, the Young Men’s Protective League, whose foundation was based on good citizenship, benevolence, charity, and friendship. Founded in 1895, the organization boasts a membership of over 700 at its peak. Lewis served on its Board of Directors ascending to its vice chair in 1920.
Upon leaving Howard, Lewis continued to teach night school at Armstrong, where he was joined in the teaching ranks by fellow Charter member Edgar Paul Westmoreland in the fall of 1920. In December 1920, Wilkerson, now an honorary member of Omega (1916) and current principal of Dunbar High School, tapped Lewis again to teach mathematics at Dunbar in D.C., the largest black high school in the city with nearly 1,500 students. In the fall of 1921, Wilkerson was promoted to Assistant Superintendent of Colored Schools, and Walter L. Smith took over as principal of Dunbar. In December 1923, Smith would be initiated into Omega as an early initiate of Alpha Omega Chapter, which Lewis was a member of at the time. During his tenure at Dunbar, Lewis served as treasurer of the Dunbar Athletic Association, principal of the Dunbar High Night School, summer school teacher at his old former high school, Armstrong, and Board of Admissions chair for colored schools serving with stalwart Omega man, Cato Adams (Alpha 1916) of Armstrong HS. He was also selected as a member of The School Club in 1921, an organization established in 1907 whose members were high school educators committed to research in the field of their work. He served on the Executive Committee of the organization along with fellow Omega men Wilkerson, G. David Houston (honorary 1915), Arthur C. Newman (Alpha Omega Chapter’s first initiate in May 1922), and Edwin B. Henderson (honorary circa 1921).
In late 1930, Wilkerson again impacted Lewis's career by recommending him to the D.C. Board of Education for promotion to Director of Evening and Summer Schools for Colored Students, which the Board approved. This would be Lewis’ final position, as he served in this capacity until his retirement in 1952. In this position, he managed the evening schools for approximately 2,600 students and 85 teachers across five schools and the summer school program, which housed 3,000+ students and 100 teachers across eleven schools annually. His impact was immediate. In May 1932, he secured the approval of the D.C. Board of Education for a 6-point plan to reorganize the evening program to increase efficiency and speed in which a student can complete the requirements to receive a diploma. In 1934, as the Depression raged on, he secured funds from the Emergency Relief Administration to keep his schools open in the evenings, which would have affected close to 40% of his students. In 1952, Lewis retired after serving 45 years in education.
Lewis also contributed to the fight for civil rights among African Americans in the United States. Lewis and 30 other individuals purchased land and homes in the 100 block of Bryant St., NW, on the south end of McMillan Reservoir in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of D.C. Years later, it was discovered that perpetual restrictive covenants were placed on the homes/lots originally by the previous two white property owners prohibiting the buyer from conveying the property in any way to a person of colored blood. In August 1946, the collective 31 property owners retained civil rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston and filed suit in D.C. District Court to have the covenants removed. This case is known as Hurd v. Hodge. After District and Appeals Court rulings upholding the covenants, the Supreme Court agreed to collectively hear this case, along with four other restrictive covenant cases from different parts of the country. Ironically, two of the cases, Shelley v. Kraemer from St. Louis and Sipes v. McGhee from Detroit, the attorneys representing the black families were Omega men: 11thGrand Basileus George L. Vaughn for the Shelley case and DC-native and War Chapter initiate Francis M. Dent for the McGhee case (Dent’s brother, Thomas, is a 1915 initiate of Omega through Alpha Chapter; Dent and Houston graduated from M Street High School together in 1911). On May 3, 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling and ruled 6-0 in its landmark decision that racially restrictive housing covenants cannot be legally enforced.
A stalwart and faithful steward for Christ, Lewis was a member of the historic 15thStreet Presbyterian Church in D.C. for over fifty years, serving under the famed Rev. Francis James Grimke, Rev. Halley B. Taylor, and, during Lewis’ final years, Rev. Robert P. Johnson. His service to the church's ministry included being a trustee board member assisting in managing the church’s $ 10,000-a-year budget. He also leveraged his talent in education as the Church School Superintendent for over 20 years. On any given Sunday, fifty kids were in attendance in Sunday school from a membership of around 200 children. Programs under his auspices included the Young People’s League, the Youth Presbyterian League, the Junior Choir, and the Social League.
Most of all, Lewis was a dedicated, supportive family man. His wife Rosa, a 1906 graduate of Howard’s Commercial College, was employed as a clerk at the Bureau of Printing & Engraving for a number of years. His oldest child, Clarence Jr., attended Dunbar while Lewis taught there, graduating in 1929. He went on to attend Howard University, where he graduated from undergraduate and dental schools in 1935 and 1939, respectively, and became a noted D.C. dentist. His daughter, Ruth, was born in 1916, graduated from Howard in 1936, and was a social worker. He provided a stable home for his family at 1924 15th St., NW, where he lived from the time of graduation from Howard in 1913 for the rest of his life.
Clarence Osceola Lewis Sr. passed away on Sunday, March 22, 1959, at the age of 76, in his beloved home of over 45 years. His final resting place is with Omega Founders, his classmate and fellow teacher, Frank Coleman, and his instructor, Ernest Everett Just, at the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Suitland, MD.