Pictures of History: Film would tell the story behind a photographer who made a visual chronicle of our times

THOMASVILLE -- In his deep and friendly voice, Matthew "Matt" Lewis will tell you stories ranging from one about the writer Katherine Anne Porter showing him her pine coffin to one about watching the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in mesmerizing action.

He might mention in passing that he won a Pulitzer Prize for photography while working for The Washington Post. Lewis will tell you he had a blast with a seemingly improbably career turn: shooting photos for the tiny Thomasville Times, after he retired from the Post.

He's part of three generations of black photographers whose work spans more than a century.

"His history is the history of our nation," said Ken Love of Pittsburgh, a respected filmmaker. He says he feels inspired to make a documentary about Lewis and the other photographers in his family because it could be a powerful statement "about our culture and where've we've been in history. His story deserves to be told."

Lewis and his wife, Jeannine, have set up a nonprofit, Matthew Lewis Legacy Inc., to raise money for the film. They'll need as much as $100,000.

Lewis, with his white hair in a short ponytail, is 78 but looks years younger. He's no braggart. But he believes that the story of his career, and that of the other photographers in his family, could inspire and educate.

Hubert Leonard, a former mayor of Thomasville, agrees. "I think it's just fantastic because he's (Lewis is) a fantastic individual."

Lewis and Jeannine moved to Thomasville, her hometown, in 1990. She had retired from teaching in Maryland, but resumed teaching here for several years. Her husband had retired from the Post.

Soon after moving to Thomasville, Matt Lewis called Sarah Sue Ingram, then the editor of The Thomasville Times. He told her he liked her use of photo pages, they got to talking photography, and Ingram asked him to stop by her office and show her some of his work.

Lewis opened up a leather portfolio case and displayed a visual chronicle of our times. There was Jackie Kennedy crying at JFK's funeral, Rev. King preaching just months before his assassination, poor people marching on Washington and numerous other images that jumped off the page. And at the back of the portfolio Ingram found a little booklet about Lewis, noting that he had won a Pulitzer.

"I said, ‘You're a Pulitzer Prize winner?' and he said, ‘Oh, that was a long time ago.' "

Ingram, amazed, asked Lewis if he'd be interested in shooting photos for the Times on a free-lance basis. Lewis shot photos ranging from nature scenes to portraits of local characters to high-school football games. He became close friends with the Times' photographer, Lewis Day. After Day died, Matt Lewis was the paper's staff photographer for a few years.

"I got caught up in photojournalism again," Lewis said. "I got as much fun out of covering the Thomasville Bulldogs as I did the Washington Redskins."

After writing a script for the documentary, Ingram is still amazed at Lewis' story and his photography. Full disclosure here: I learned a lot from Ingram when she was one of my editors at The High Point Enterprise years ago. She is not easily amazed. I've known Matt Lewis for years, and I am also intrigued by his life and work.

He grew up in McDonald, Pa., where his grandfather, H.J. Lewis, ran a photography studio. The son of indentured slaves, he'd become a noted portrait photographer. Matt Lewis' dad, Matthew Lewis Sr., was a sports photographer and photo engraver at The Pittsburgh Courier, a major black newspaper.

Matt Lewis helped out in his grandfather's studio. But he didn't decide on photography as his career until he was in his mid-20s, after studying at Howard University and the University of Pittsburgh, serving in the Navy as a medic and working as a sandblaster in a steel mill. He took a correspondence course from the New York Institute of Photography, submitted numerous photos to numerous publications, and got a lot of rejection letters.

He sought out advice from Gordon Parks, the well-known photographer. He told Parks he was going to drop some of his photos by Look magazine. Parks told him he wasn't ready for that, but gave him a lot of advice, such as to use the lenses on his camera like adjectives and adverbs.

Lewis began free-lancing for Baltimore's Afro-American newspaper. His work for that paper included shots of the Kennedy funeral and the 1963 March on Washington. The Post hired him in 1965. Lewis shot everything: four presidents, John Lennon, Ted Williams, the nasty 1968 Democratic National Convention.

His stories about a lot of those shots have a common theme: His boss gave him a tough assignment, and he left the office full of self-doubt, thinking to himself, how in the world was he ever going to get the shot the boss wanted? But almost always, Matt Lewis delivered.

He won the Pulitzer in 1975 for feature photography. The entry was an eclectic mix of 20 photos that included ones of Katherine Anne Porter, Rep. Bella Abzug, Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler and the Washington Redskins in action.

Here's how Lewis learned he'd won the Pulitzer: He'd been out on assignment when he got a call from the paper saying to come to the office immediately. He walked into the newsroom, where he found Ben Bradlee, the Post's larger-than-life editor, and a bunch of other people gathered.

"The closer I got to them, the bigger the smiles got," Lewis said. Bradlee gave him a bear hug and the news.

Lewis worked for the Post for 15 more years. He became the assistant managing editor of the photography department, at the time a landmark position for a black.

The documentary would tell the story of Lewis, his father and grandfather. All in all, they made their mark on a profession once dominated by whites. "The education and inspiration is there because of my family," Lewis said.

(For more information about the effort to make the documentary, call 472-6100; write to P.O. Box 2158, Thomasville, N.C. 27361-2158; or e-mail mattlewislegacy@aol.com.)

■ John Railey writes editorials for the Journal. He can be reached at jrailey@wsjournal.com.