Biographical Database of Black Woman Suffragists
Biography of Annie K. Lewis, 1882-1943
By McKinley King
Undergraduate, Western Kentucky University
Faculty mentor: Dr, Jennifer Hanley
Annie K. Lewis was born in Sharon, Georgia in 1882. She attended elementary school through the fourth grade. In February 1905 she married Bishop Lewis, also from Georgia, and the couple migrated two months later to New York City. In 1910 she was living in Manhattan as a live-in domestic servant with her husband in a private household. Ten years later the couple was keeping a boardinghouse with eight boarders. In 1930 they continued keeping a lodging house on 137th St. in Harlem. In 1940 the couple was listed as owning their home at 259 W. 137th St. valued at $10,000. Two lodgers resided with them. They had no children.
In 1917 she served as president of the Colored Woman's Suffrage Club of New York City. She attended the August 1917 convention of the New York Woman Suffrage Party (WSP) in Saratoga, and noted that "the colored delegates received the same treatment as the white delegates, having been given delegate badges, were seated on the floor of the convention hall with the New York City representation..." (New York Age, 20 Sept. 1917) Others in attendance disagreed with her and thought that even in these meetings African Americans were relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Lewis followed up on this exchange by running for and being elected as the WSP vice-leader for the Nineteenth Assembly District.
In New York City in 1917 there was much debate about the movement for black women's suffrage. Lewis was adamant in her assertion that black women both needed and deserved the right to vote. She was steadfast in her commitment to attaining black women's suffrage and worked tirelessly to see it come to fruition. In 1917 Lewis's dedication to the cause was publicly recognized when she was made vice president of the New York Woman Suffrage Party (NYWSP). Lewis's high-ranking leadership position in the NYWSP was important because at that time it was unusual for a black woman to hold an officer position in a predominantly white organization
In September 1917 Annie K. Lewis gave a suffrage speech to the Equal Rights Association at Mother Zion A.M.E. Church in Harlem as the suffrage campaign neared its conclusion. The New York Age quoted her at length: "A victory in New York State on November 6 would mean not only that the most popular and important state in the Union had been added to suffrage strength, but that there would be a triumph for the Federal Amendment which would help the nation wide woman suffrage. The last time the Federal Amendment was voted upon in the House of Representatives 204 votes were cast against it of which New York Congressmen cast 25. If the whole 43 in the House of Representatives voted in favor there would be a majority of 30 in its favor. New York men ought to realize then that they are blocking progress all along the line when they vote against the enfranchisement of New York State women." Woman suffrage carried the day in November 1917 and Annie K. Lewis continued her political activism. According to the New York Age, colored women "have begun to form clubs and are talking politics with zest and enthusiasm." Lewis was elected vice-leader of the Nineteenth Assembly District and she attended the statewide meeting of the New York State Suffrage Party as an official delegate. As president of the Woman's Political League in Harlem she organized a meeting at P.S. 89 in May 1918 "at which well-known men and women will discuss politics."
Beyond her suffrage activism, Lewis was active for two decades in community affairs in Harlem. During World War I she served as chairman of a local Draft Board, appointed by Republican Governor Charles Whitman. In the mid-1920s she joined the Baha'i Faith. She was also active in a 1929 membership drive for the Harlem YWCA. The New York Age recorded her as 2nd vice president of the Women's Stop Lynching League in August 1931.
Annie Lewis died in New York City in July 1943 with an obituary in the New York Age noting her passing. Her life is a microcosm of the broader Black woman suffrage story. Born in rural Georgia, with little formal education, she migrated as a young married to New York and settled in Harlem. After a stint as a domestic servant, she became a lodginghouse keeper and a community activist. She was a leader in the Woman Suffrage Party, supported the war effort during World War I, was active in the Baha'i Faith, supported fundraising for the Harlem YWCA, and was a leader in the antilynching movement. Her suffrage activism served her community and racial goals as she enlisted in the twentieth-century Black Freedom Struggle.
Sources:
Elisabeth Israels Perry, After the Vote: Feminist Politics in La Guardia's New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).
Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 141-42.
"Colored Suffragists to Argue Question," New York Age, Sept. 13, 1917, p. 1.
"Suffragists Drew No Line," New York Age, Sept. 20, 1917, p. 1.
"Female Suffrage Notes," New York Age, Sept. 27, 1917, p. 8.
"15,000 Colored women to Vote in the Harlem District; Suffragists are Organizing," New York Age, Nov. 22, 1917, p. 1.
"Harlem Women Show Interest in Politics," New York Age, May 25, 1918, p. 5.
"Women's Stop Lynching League Petition Drive," New York Age, Aug. 22, 1931, p. 2.
"Mrs. Annie K. Lewis, Baha'i Faith Member Dies at Age of 61," New York Age, July. 10, 1943, p. 4.
Federal Manuscript Censuses, New York City, 1910-1940, household listings for Bishop and Annie K. Lewis. Accessed online via Ancestry Library edition.
Related Writings in Database