Fred Lewis

The lawsuit was paid for by Black Marshall. A CBS19 report says Lewis worked with the NAACP and local leaders to sue the Harrison County Democratic Party after the 1948 primary excluded Black voters, and that the state NAACP required the local group to cover the costs. About $1,800 was raised with help from Wiley College students, faculty and staff. The case, Perry v. Cyphers, was decided by the Fifth Circuit in 1951, and Black residents of the county gained the right to vote that October. Lewis's papers are held at the Starr Family Home State Historic Site.

What the plaque says

Fred Lewis Educator, NAACP officer and civil rights activist Fred Lewis (1912-2002), managed Ruth Starr Blake's estate after he returned from WWII. Lewis was influential in restoring voting rights for African American Texans. The first White Citizens Party was formed in 1878 in Harrison county by several officiers of the Texas and Pacific Railroad, including Amory Starr (1847-1906). In 1923, the Texas legislature passed a law that excluded African Americans from voting in the Democratic Party primary. Fred Lewis advanced the case, Perry v. Cyphers, to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals by raising funds and partnering with statewide NAACP leadership. In 1951, the court decision ended the white primary system and restored the vote to African Americans in Harrison county. (2019)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — steps away
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Harrison County Historical Museum — 0.3 mi
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 0.7 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 15 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• Marshall Fire Department — steps away
• Trinity Episcopal Church — 0.2 mi
• Confederate Capitol of Missouri — 0.3 mi
• James Harper Starr — 0.3 mi