Helen Matthews Lewis

Abstract

Helen Matthews Lewis George Brosi Each year, the Appalachian Studies Association presents an award to a person they judge has served our region in an exemplary way. It is called the Helen Lewis Community Service Award because Helen Matthews Lewis is widely viewed as an exemplar of service to the region. Now is an appropriate time to celebrate the continuing life of Helen Lewis because the University Press of Kentucky has just released a wonderful new book: Helen Matthews Lewis: Living Social Justice in Appalachia edited by Patricia D. Beaver and Judith Jennings. The book is essentially a Helen Lewis reader, bringing together for the first time some of her most important writings. Many of Helen Lewis's essays were not published in books or even in widely circulating magazines because she has always been a grass-roots kind of person who is most comfortable working with ordinary people and publishing in little newsletters or small presses. Helen Lewis continues to live an amazing life. She was arrested in 1948 in Atlanta for attending an inter-racial meeting. In the 1960s she pioneered college Appalachian Studies classes at Clinch Valley College. In 1969 she was fired from her job as a professor at East Tennessee State University for "nurturing radical students." In 1978 she co-edited Colonialism in Modern America: The Appalachian Case, a book that was instrumental in discrediting reliance upon the "culture of poverty" theory that blamed the victims of poverty for their condition rather than the economic system. In the late 1970s she served as director of the Highlander Center, and in the early 1980s she worked closely with Appalshop. In the 1990s she succeeded Loyal Jones as Director of what is now called the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center at Berea College. In 1997 Helen Lewis "retired" and moved to North Georgia, where she was active in her church and worked closely with a variety of nearby colleges. Just recently she has returned to the Virginia mountains to live in the ElderSpirit Community in Abingdon. Helen Lewis amply demonstrates that it is possible to live the life of an independent scholar and make a tremendous contribution not only to scholarship, but to activism as well. [End Page 8] Copyright © 2012 Berea College