"Lewis H. Michaux" (August 4,1885?- August 1976)

Booksellar and black nationlist,was born in Newport News,Virginia,the son of Henry Michaux and Blance Pollard.Some uncertainty about his birth date exists,because his death certificate from the New York Vital Records Department lists it as August 23 1884.Before coming to New York.,he worked variously as a pea picker,window washer, and deacon in the Philadelphia,church of his brother,Lightfoot Solomon Michaux. According to Edith Glover,his secretary when he was a deacon Lewis started selling books in Philadelphia with an inventory of five.When founded his bookstore in 1932 in Harlem, he still had only a few books with him,including Up from Slavery,plus a bust of its author,Booker T.Washington.Lewis initially sold books from a wagon, then moved to a store on Seventh Avenue (later renamed Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard),at first sleeping at the back of the store. He quickly realized the necessity for a bookstore in Harlem. "Tou couldn't find 15 to 20 books by black people,"he said (New York Times,August 27 1976).When the bookstore first opened,Lewis daily receipts were often less than a dollar; when he retired,the daily receipts totaled up to $1,500 per day,and the National Memorial African Bookstore had became a Harlem landmark.Lewis called his bookstore,which became the largest in Harlem,the "House of Common Sense and the Home of Proper Propaganda"and installed a sign over it reading,"Knowledge is power; you need it every hour.Read a book."
His bookstore attracted customers and vistors from all over the world,including his fellow African-American nationalist Malcolm X, Kwane Nkrumah (later the first president of Ghana),W.E.B.Du Bois,Langston Hughes,Joe Louis,Eartha Kitt,and Louis Armstrong.The store became a landmark for African-American scholars and for anyone who was interested in literature by or about African Americans,Africans,Caribbeans,and South Americans.Lewis Almost single-handedly operated his bookstore for forty-four years and increased his inventory to two hundred thousand volumes, making the store the largest in the nation devoted entirely to
subjects concerning African-Americans and Africa.Professor John Henrik Clarke of Hunter College called the bookstore an "intellectual haven." Lewis influenced and advised many people of all ages,white & African-American.He encouraged average customers to begin home libraries and
invite those who could not afford to buy books to sit down and read them without charge."The amnition of our people was to make ends meet,"he ounce said in response to the difficulty in getting Harlemites to read (New York Times,August 31,1976).This aspect of African American life,it was recalled at his eulogy,led to Lewis to observe,"The way to hide something from the black
man is to put it a book."
In 1968 Lewis's store was moved from Adam Clayton Powell Jr.Boulevard to West 125th Street to
accommodate the State Harlem Office Building,despite strong protests by Lewis and the community.In 1974 the store was closed after additional conflict with state authorities over its location.
Active in the black nationalism movement in Harlem from the 1930s-the 1960s, he served as leader of the African Nationalism in America,backed Marcus Garvey's back-to-Africa movement,picketed in Harlem to promote African American business,and protested the United Nations' actions in the Republic of the Congo (now Zaire) in the period 1960-1964.Lewis also sat on the advisory board of the Liberator (established in 1961),a magazine that published the early work of many now-famous African-American authors and critics,including Amiri Baraka,(LeRoi Jones), James Balwin,Ishmael Reed,Ossie Sykes,Clebert Ford, and Langston Hughes.Lewis deplored the term "Negro." He felt that it was a derogatory term used for slaves and that it denied Africam-Americans their heritage.He preferred to use "black man."In addition,despite both brother's career as an evangelist and his own upbringing,Lewis shunned the church,claiming that it robbed
him of his individuality and saying,"No white God answers no black prayers.The only lord I know is the landlord,and I don't have to pray for him,he comes every month for the rent" (New York Times,August 27,1976).Lewis was married to Bettie Kennedy and had
one son.The first of three annual Lewis H.Michaux Book Fairs was held in May 1976,just three months before his death in the Bronx.