Oral history with Mr. Nathaniel H. Lewis, native Mississippian

              Oral history with Mr. Nathaniel H. Lewis, native Mississippian
This oral history is provided through a cooperative project of University of Southern Mississippi Libraries and USM's Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage.
Funding provided by a National Leadership Grant for Libraries from the Institute for Museum and Library Services
The transcript is presented here for reference purposes only. Interviews in this collection are protected by copyright. PERMISSION TO PUBLISH MUST BE REQUESTED from the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage. Please call ( 601) 266- 4574 for more information.
Biography
Mr. Nathaniel Hawthorne Lewis was born in McComb, Mississippi, one of five children in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Meredith Lewis, Junior. Mr. Lewis's ancestors on both the maternal and paternal sides were brought to Mississippi as slaves, and he recalls that " My grandfather was born on the plantation of Senator [ Albert G.] Brown, of Mississippi, in Hinds County... His freedom was purchased, when he was seven years old, for three hundred and fifty dollars. “ The purchase was made by Mr. Lewis's great- grandfather. Of his grandfather, he says that " He grew up as a freedman, but he didn't leave the plantation.”
One can almost sense the drama, as Mr. Lewis recalls that his grandfather " was thirty- one years old at the time that Sherman marched down the Pearl, through the heart of the South, to the sea... He told me that he stood on the roadside near Georgetown... and he saw Sherman and his men march down the Pearl River. "
Mr. Lewis has spent all of his life in McComb, except for several years’ service in the Army during World War Two, during which he served in several areas of the United States and abroad in Japan and in the Philippine Islands. He attended black schools in McComb, under the racially segregated system, and also spent his working career there, although he was traveling as a train porter. Once when his employer wanted to transfer him away he declined with the explanation that " all the money I ever spent in my life, I spent it in McComb.”
The only work available to black people in Mr. Lewis's youth, except for farm labor or other menial work, was either to work for the railroad or teach in the Negro school system. Mr. Lewis went with the railroad and had accumulated forty- six years of service when he retired in 1973. After the railroad porters were allowed to unionize, Mr. Lewis served for years as the grievance man working on behalf of his fellow workers with the company.
Mr. Lewis venerates his father and recalls that " My father was... one who took civic pride in his community,” and in this respect Nathaniel Lewis followed his father's footsteps. In 1928, the two organized the McComb Independent Lodge No. 846 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks of the World, and " the purpose was that there were Negroes registering to vote in some of the towns in
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