Arts educator Elma Ina Lewis received a Presidential Medal for the Arts by Pres. Ronald Regan in 1983. Photo Credit: The National Alliance of Black School Educators

Many talented educators have used their considerable expertise to enrich others in their community. One of these was Elma Ina Lewis, an American arts educator who was so successful at promoting the arts that she received a Presidential Medal for the Arts by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Elma was born on Sept. 15, 1921, in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of immigrants who came to the United States from Barbados in the early 20th century. As a young woman, Elma worked her way through college by acting in local theatre productions. In 1943, she graduated from Emerson College, and in 1944, she earned her Master’s degree from the Boston University School of Education.

To share her love of the theater, Elma founded both The Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in 1950. Her school, which emphasized music and dance, was attended by many students who found work in Broadway musicals and who built professional careers in the theater. Among them were Kenneth Scott who performed in The Wiz on Broadway, and Leslie Barrow who built a distinguished career dancing and teaching dance in Germany. Later, Elma founded the National Center of Afro-American Artists which served as an umbrella organization for the performing arts school, local arts groups, and a museum. She also developed the Technical Theatre Program at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute. Through this program, 750 inmates at the Norfolk Prison staged performances and learned skills such as musical composition. In 1972 the book Who Took the Weight? Black Voices from Norfolk Prison included work by ten inmates who were writers and artists. Elma wrote the forward for the volume.

For her work in fostering the arts, Elma received the Commonwealth Award, Massachusetts’ highest award in the arts, and nearly 30 honorary doctorates from universities, including both Harvard and Brown. In Oct. 2003, the National Visionary Leadership Project at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named Elma a Visionary Elder. Musician Ray Charles and historian John Hope Franklin were similarly honored the same night. Also, Elma was one of the first recipients of a MacArthur Fellows Grant in 1981. In 1983, she garnered a Presidential Medal for the Arts from President Ronald Reagan.

Sadly, this amazing Chalkboard Champion passed away from complications from diabetes on Jan. 1, 2004, in Boston. She was 82 years old.