Remembering our Friend and Hero, Lewis Sinclair
Ten years ago today, the world lost a true luminary. A dear friend of the Southern Center, Lewis Sinclair, peacefully passed away at the age of 93 on June 8th, 2008.
Lewis and his beloved wife of 27 years, Mary Sinclair
A passion for and dedication to social justice and grassroots community organizing were constant throughout Lewis’s incredible life. He believed that people didn’t need to be lectured on what was wrong, or what needed to change in their communities – they already knew – and that the fixes were simply a matter of bringing people together to collectively identify challenges and brainstorm their solutions. “You need two things to do this work, a sense of outrage and a sense of humor, and Lewis had both in abundance,” former Southern Center President Steve Bright told the AJC. “He never let us take ourselves too seriously. He raised our spirits on countless occasions.”
Lewis was a constant presence at protests.
Lewis was an economist with the Tennessee Valley Authority, who eventually retired to Atlanta. He was a constant presence at protests against capital punishments and any human rights violation. As a friend of SCHR — and a board member — Lewis, along with Mary Sinclair, his beloved partner of 27 years, would assist in death penalty cases by interviewing witnesses and preparing them to testify in court, ensure client’s family was taken care of, and volunteer any variety of practical assistance that the SCHR attorneys needed. “Lewis was very proud of the Southern Center and proud of its work,” remembers Mary Sinclair. “He felt so good about what the office did.”
Kori Chen writes in the SCHR Human Rights Report, “while deeply committed to SCHR’s excellent legal work, Lewis also believed that you could only achieve so much through the courtroom. Lewis remembers that SCHR – then known as the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee – was founded to be the legal support for local activists organizing against the death penalty and brutality in prisons and jails. Thus, he was very supportive of broadening the scope of its work to include strategies such as community organizing through programs like Fairness for Prisoners’ Families and our campaign against private probation companies in Americus, Georgia. In essence, Lewis saw these efforts as returning SCHR to its roots.”
Most poignantly, Lewis believed in the power of people. He believed that every individual, regardless of profession or status, holds the power within themselves to create the change that is needed in the world. We carry these lessons with us and continue to be inspired by Lewis’s legacy.
“From my earliest days at SCHR, I knew I had cheerleaders in Mary and Lewis Sinclair,” remembers Sara Totonchi, SCHR Executive Director. “They helped us all feel part of something larger than ourselves, a struggle of enormous urgency for human rights and dignity. As we remember Lewis today, we reaffirm our commitment to continuing the struggle that he and others bravely fought for so many years.”
Read Kori Chen’s tribute to Lewis here.