Loida Lewis wants women to know they are capable of anything, even running a billion-dollar business in the midst of grief. It’s what she had to do in the wake of her husband’s untimely death. Reginald F. Lewis was a titan in business, the first African American to run a billion-dollar company, TLC Beatrice International. When Loida met Reginald on a blind date in 1968, she had no plans on marrying anyone, but a chance encounter would lead to a partnership in love and business that changed the course of her life.
Now at 80 years old, Lewis is opening up about her journey in a memoir, “Why Should Guys Have All the Fun?: An Asian American Story of Love, Marriage, Motherhood, and Running a Billion-Dollar Empire.” The book is a play off the title of the best-selling biography about her late spouse, “Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?” Lewis worked with writer Blair S. Walker to finish her husband’s memoir following his death at age 50 after a battle with brain cancer. Mrs. Lewis and Walker have joined forces again, this time for her own book project, to go deep into the life experiences and faith that inspired her in the midst of tragedy.
“That’s what I want, especially women to learn from my book, that every challenge is another way of saying I can do it,” Lewis told theGrio in an interview on “TheGrio Weekly.”
“Mr. Lewis always planned. And when he thought that he might die, he made his right-hand man, Jean Fugett, his brother, to be vice chairman. And so when he died suddenly after a short illness Jean Fugett became chair and CEO. So that was all in the plan,” Lewis recalls.
“I am very, very grateful to him… He was very close to Mr. Lewis and he allowed me to be grief-stricken to recover,” Lewis tells theGrio. When the business needs required a new CEO, initially there was a search for a replacement. Through her pain, Lewis had a revelation. “It took me time to recover. I couldn’t even say the ‘Our Father’ [prayer]. That was how heartbroken I was. But after six months, after prayer, I said to myself, why hire somebody else?”
Lewis stepped up to lead the company, and found support from those closest to her, including her eldest daughter Leslie, who she says told her, “Mom, what took you so long?”
Before Loida Lewis, who was born in the Philippines, ever became a business boss woman, she was an accomplished immigration lawyer. She made history as the first Asian woman to pass the New York Bar. Her father had political ambitions for his daughter and encouraged her to aim high. While she intended to become a nun and never marry, meeting Reginald F. Lewis changed the course of her trajectory in every way.
In addition to her impactful career, Lewis says her role as mother to two daughters is one that motivated her with purpose.
“Mr. Lewis was huge in raising them,” Lewis tells theGrio. “We both agreed that they should number one, respect their elders. Number two, that they do the work…study. So from the time that they were infants, six months old, I started reading to them and read all the way until they could read for themselves.”
After her husband died, Lewis leaned on the support of her mother-in-law, Carolyn Fugett, whom she warmly calls her “mother-in-love,” to help her manage her major family and business responsibilities. Fugett passed away in February 2023 at the age of 97, after a rich life of activism and community work.
“Mrs. Carolyn Fugett would come to New York from Baltimore, all her children were grown by then, she still had her husband,” Lewis tells theGrio. “But she would come and stay with me in New York while I go to Europe and inspect the foreign companies — companies in Ireland, in Spain, in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Sweden, and in Norway. So all of that I could do because Mom, Mrs. Fugett, was my helpmate after Mr. Lewis died.”
Carolyn Fugett’s birthday celebration with Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. (Photo credit: courtesy The Nicolas Family)
Being in an interracial relationship in the 1970s with an African American man, also taught Lewis that her daughters needed a firm grounding in their Black heritage.
“I insisted that they are proud of their being African Americans,” Lewis tells theGrio. “Yes, half of them is Asian, Filipino. But in the United States, because of the original sin of slavery, the American society will always consider them African Americans.”
Lewis was intentional in putting her daughters into programs like Jack and Jill, and exposing them to other aspects of Black culture to build pride and confidence. Both of her children, Leslie and Christina, grew up to be Harvard graduates and entrepreneurs like their father, with their own unique creative and philanthropic endeavors. They are now helping to produce a biopic of his “Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?” story with Charles D. King’s media company Macro.
For Loida Lewis, the life she has lived wasn’t the one she planned, but it’s one she is proud of and she hopes it inspires a new generation of women to realize their full potential: “If you have already a negative result in your mind to say, ‘Oh, I can’t do it,’ then you fail already. That’s why, why should guys have all the fun?”
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