Mt. Airy prison poet
Children’s protests save life of Death Row inmate
by AMY BRISSON
PART ONE OF TWO
When poet Reginald Sinclair Lewis was moved to a death watch cell to await his execution in July of 1997, he almost gave up.
“It’s cold and lonely being on the death watch, and every day that passed got darker, and I was getting depressed,” Lewis told a Local reporter on August 4. “I thought I was gone. They asked me where I wanted my body to be shipped and what size suit I wanted to be buried in. That really shook me.”
Lewis, a one-time resident of Mt. Airy, does not seem like the kind of person you expect to meet through a sheet of bullet-proof glass in a super-maximum security prison (Graterford). Lewis is on death row for the murder of a Philadelphia pimp in 1982, although he claims that he was in San Diego, California, at the time.
He is verbose, friendly, humorous and a spell-binding storyteller. He also has two self- published books of poetry and a book of essays to his name, and a resume of published work that would intimidate a literature professor.
It was in fact his writing, and the concern and bravery of a class of school children, which won Lewis a stay of execution in the summer of 1997.
Plays and Protests
In 1995, Lewis had begun corresponding with young pen pals from Spring Valley School in Farmington, western Pennsylvania. It is a parochial school that is part of the Bruderhof community, a Christian group devoted to opposing violence.
Lewis and the children became friends through their letters, and the kids were fascinated that he was a writer. They begged him to write them a Christmas play, and although Lewis had never done any playwriting before, he reluctantly agreed.
He wrote to the Theatre Communications Group in New York and asked them to send him plays by contemporary young Americans, so he could learn about structure and dialogue. Given only a couple of weeks to write, Lewis managed to produce a children’s play called Billy’s Best Christmas in time for rehearsals. In the story, a sad young boy named Billy wants to visit his father for Christmas, who is locked in prison. His classmates discover his situation and arrange the visit, and also raise money to buy Christmas gifts for their friend.
The play, performed for the public by the Spring Valley students that December, was a success, and Lewis considers it the highlight of his writing career.
“It was my greatest achievement as a writer,” said Lewis. “I don’t care about the books; it was writing a play that touched the hearts and minds of children.”
Hans Brinkmann, who works at the Spring Valley School and corresponds with Lewis, told the Local, “The children loved the play because he had a certain feeling for each child. So in a sense, he wrote the play thinking of the children, and the parts for the different ones. He was sensitive in that way.”
When the Bruderhof children learned in 1997 that then-Governor Tom Ridge had signed the warrant for Lewis’ execution at the State Correctional Institute in Greene County (SCI Greene), they immediately organized a protest rally. They showed up outside the prison with placards that said “Don’t murder Reggie, he’s our friend” and “End the racist death penalty.”
The protest, which took place outside the main gates of SCI Greene, was the idea and initiative of the kids. Lewis did not even suspect their arrival.
“A true child naturally can’t understand this sort of eye-for-an eye attitude, and our children wanted to do something, to express that there’s another way, there’s reconciliation,” said Brinkmann. “And it was in that sense that they went to bat on Reggie’s behalf, and everybody who is in his position.”
Lewis, sitting in a cold cell on Death Watch, did not know about the protest until a friend who was cleaning cells informed him. At 6 p.m. that night, Lewis said, the friend shouted to him, “Yo Reggie! Turn on the T.V., you’re on the news!”
Reporters were interviewing the Spring Valley children, who were pumping their fists, offering flowers to the prison guards and promising to go to jail on Lewis’ behalf.
The children went on to organize a three-day, 30-mile march to Harrisburg of more than 1,000 young people, which they called the Children’s Crusade Against the Death Penalty. Shortly after, only five days before his scheduled execution, Lewis received a stay and was moved off death watch.
Lewis, who later wrote the Bruderhof students another Christmas play called An Affinity for Angels, was deeply touched by their compassion.
“I made a promise to myself to just try to produce good works from that day on,” said Lewis. “To touch other people and to try to contribute to society.”
Growing up in Philadelphia
Lewis, who has never had a feature article written about him before in spite of his writing accomplishments, didn’t always have such a strong sense of direction in his life.
Born in 1954 in Richmond, Virginia, he grew up during turbulent times.
Following Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, Richmond was torn by riots, and Lewis’ father, a U.S. Serviceman, decided to move the family to Philadelphia. Worried about the influence of dangerous youth gangs in their neighborhood, the family moved back and forth between Virginia and Pennsylvania before finally settling down in our town’s Kensington section.
Although it wasn’t always an easy place to live, Lewis believes the experiences of his youth have helped him with his writing.
“I grew up around an ethnic mix of people,” explained Lewis. “My family was one of the first African American families to integrate a predominantly white neighborhood in lower Kensington. So as a writer I’m now able to communicate with people from all walks of life.”
Unfortunately, racial tensions made things hard on Lewis in school. First attending Penn Treaty Junior High and then Thomas Edison High School, Lewis found himself pressured into joining the 12th and Oxford Street gang. He says the gang, besides offering him a social network, helped protect him from dangers such as the all-white Fishtown gang.
Lewis describes his childhood, and becoming a member of one of Philadelphia’s most dangerous gangs, in his latest book, Where I’m Writing From: Essays from Pennsylvania’s Death Row.
He describes how the gang pressured him to show a disinterest in school and achievement. He writes, “Verbalizing an independence and individuality meant alienating my homeboys…it was considered an act of betrayal that had deadly consequences.”
Despite the discouragement, Lewis always loved learning and practiced writing song lyrics for his dream of being a singer. He also used to secretly memorize sections of the dictionary, especially reveling in long and complex words.
“I felt lonely because I couldn’t use that vernacular with my gang friends,” Lewis told the Local. The only time Lewis felt comfortable was when he was sent to stay with his aunts, uncles and grandmother in Mt. Airy. There, he said, he felt free to talk to middle-class black and white friends about culture, politics, and his aspirations.
“We loved the Germantown and Mt. Airy sections; it was our respite from the violence- ridden gang section,” said Lewis. “It was like stepping into an exotic world, because we had never seen such remoteness. It was idyllic. We had never seen houses with lawns and trees. I used to cry when they made me leave my grandmother’s house.”
At barbeques, block parties and services at the Bright Host Baptist Church, Lewis would talk to neighbors and friends in Mt. Airy about his interest in music and song writing. One friend introduced him to Billy Paul, a Philadelphia native who sang the hit song “Me and Mrs. Jones.” From 1970 to 1971, Lewis interned at Paul’s studio on 36th and Spring Garden Streets.
Excelled in prison
Lewis writes regretfully in his latest book about the years after Billy Paul: his further involvement in the gang, participation in drug smuggling, and finally a shootout that landed him in prison for the first time in 1976.
Even in prison, however, Lewis found things to excel at. He got into boxing, and quickly became the welter-weight champion of Rahway prison. When he was paroled several years later, he tried pursuing the sport, hoping to compete one day for the world welterweight title. But undisciplined and facing the pressures of life after jail, Lewis quickly lost interest and drifted away from boxing
In the early 1980s Lewis tried to go back to school. He enrolled at Temple University under the continuing education program, with the intention of majoring in English and pursuing a career in writing.
Unfortunately, said Lewis, he was young and restless, and had a difficult time committing to school. “I had all this mental energy I didn’t understand,” said Lewis. “I was drifting, I had no life counselor to help direct me.”
After a professor took him aside and told him he didn’t belong at Temple, Lewis, discouraged, dropped out. He became self-employed, selling costume jewelry with semi-precious stones and perfume to women at clubs such as the “Mark 4” in Germantown.
Then, on November 21, 1982, a 250-pound pimp was found dead in a seedy bar in North Philadelphia. It was this discovery which eventually landed Lewis, then 28 years old, in prison with a death sentence, and propelled him towards his calling as a writer and poet.
More to come
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