Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Pioneer Abraham Lincoln Lewis (1865-1947) and others founded Florida’s oldest African-American insurance company, Afro-American Life in 1901, which spread throughout the South as far as Texas. In 1926, A.L. Lewis opened Lincoln Golf and Country Club where the famous visited, such as heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis (1914-1981). Later Lewis founded American Beach, which in 1935 was a recreational haven for blacks during segregation. Although most noted for the Afro, A.L. Lewis started Florida’s first black-owned and operated bottling company and assisted Booker T. Washington in establishing the national Negro Business League. Throughout his life A.L. Lewis continued to serve as a dynamic leader in countless organizations such as the 33rd Masonic Order and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he was a principle financial supporter. He also provided financial support to Edward Waters College and Bethune Cookman College. Interred in this nationally historic mausoleum, which was registered in 1997, are his immediate family and first wife, Mary Sammis Lewis (1865-1923), who was the great-granddaughter of Anna and Zephaniah Kingsley of Kingsley Plantation, today a national park on Fort George Island.