1. Kwaku Walker Lewis, was an early African-American abolitionist, Freemason, and Mormon elder from Massachusetts.
22 Facts About Walker Lewis
1. 2.
Walker Lewis was an active member of the Underground Railroad and the anti-slavery movement.
3.
Walker Lewis was raised in a prominent middle-class black family that valued education, activism and political involvement.
4.
Walker Lewis was a successful barber who owned residential and commercial building in Boston.
5.
In March 1826, Walker Lewis married Elizabeth Lovejoy.
6.
The Walker Lewis family moved to Lowell, where the Industrial Revolution of textile mills brought economic prosperity to the area.
7.
In Lowell, together with his brother-in-law John Levy, Walker Lewis opened a barbershop on Merrimack Street.
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Walker Lewis purchased a two-family home in the Centralville section of Lowell.
9.
In 1829, the MGCA helped David Walker Lewis to publish the radical, 76-page Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, which demanded unconditional and immediate emancipation of all slaves in the USA.
10.
Walker Lewis arranged for the Boston printer who published the Articles for the African Grand Lodge, to print the controversial Appeal.
11.
In 1831, Walker Lewis served as President of the African Humane Society in Boston, which provided funeral expenses for the poor, assisted widows, built the African School in Boston.
12.
In Lowell during the 1840s and 1850s, Walker Lewis's home was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
13.
Walker Lewis would cut and style their hair to assist in their disguise.
14.
About 1842, Walker Lewis, who had worshipped with the Episcopal Church, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
15.
Walker Lewis is believed to have been baptized by Parley P Pratt.
16.
One year later, in the summer of 1843, Walker Lewis was ordained an elder by William Smith, brother of founder Joseph Smith.
17.
Walker Lewis became the third black man known to hold the Mormon priesthood.
18.
Walker Lewis migrated to Utah to be with the main body of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
19.
Walker Lewis left Massachusetts at the end of March 1851 and arrived in Salt Lake City about October 1.
20.
Walker Lewis asked Jane Elizabeth Manning James, a black Mormon from Connecticut, to marry him as his polygamous wife, but she declined.
21.
Walker Lewis left after six months the following spring, returning to Lowell.
22.
Walker Lewis died on October 26,1856, in Lowell of tuberculosis.