David Levering Lewis
| David Levering Lewis | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
May 25, 1936 Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | History |
| Institutions | New York University |
| Alma mater |
London School of Economics Columbia University Fisk University |
| Notable awards |
Pulitzer Prize (1994, 2001). National Humanities Medal. 2009 |
David Levering Lewis (born May 25, 1936) is the Julius Silver University Professor and Professor of History at New York University. He is twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, for part one and part two of his biography of W. E. B. Du Bois (in 1994 and 2001, respectively). He is the first author to win Pulitzer Prizes for biography for two successive volumes on the same subject.
The author of eight books and editor of two more, Lewis concentrates on comparative history with special focus on twentieth-century United States social history and civil rights. His interests include nineteenth-century Africa, twentieth-century France, and Islamic Spain.
Lewis was born in 1936 in Little Rock, Arkansas to a middle-class African-American family. His father John Henry Lewis, Sr. had graduated from Morris Brown College in Atlanta, and went on to Yale Divinity School, becoming its first African-American graduate. He also earned an M.A. in sociology from the University of Chicago. He became principal of Dunbar Junior and Senior High School and Junior College in Little Rock. Lewis' mother taught high school math in the school.
While the family lived in Little Rock, the young Lewis attended parochial school. Lewis attended Wilberforce Preparatory School and Xenia High School after his father became Dean of the Theological School at Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio.
...
Wikipedia