Rufus Lewis

Lewis was born in Montgomery, Alabama. He graduated from Fisk University in 1931 with a degree in business administration. He then moved to Alabama State College in Montgomery and worked as a football coach there until the outbreak of World War II. After the war ended, Lewis established classes for black Montgomery residents who wanted to pass the literacy tests they were required to complete to vote. He was a member of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and a founding member of the Montgomery Improvement Association which organized the Montgomery bus boycott. He served on the organization's executive committee and was chairman of the transportation committee and the voter registration committee. At the organization's first meeting, Lewis nominated Martin Luther King Jr. as president.

In 1960, Lewis helped to found the Alabama Democratic Conference. He later attended the official signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 at the White House. In 1976, he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives. The following year, Jimmy Carter appointed him a US Marshal.

In 1994, one of Montgomery's libraries was renamed Rufus A. Lewis Regional Library in his honor. The street that he and his wife lived on for many years was also changed from Bolivar Lane to Rufus A. Lewis Lane.