David Lewis was shot in the back and killed in the parking garage of a San Mateo shopping center in June. His death shocked and saddened a vast number of people, but nowhere more so than in San Quentin.
His example changed the way many inmates do their time. Lewis was a drug addict and dealer at age 15 and by age 19 was serving a 10-years-to-life sentence. He paroled in 1991 and afterwards was one of the few ex-prisoners to return to San Quentin often to give advice and encouragement.
Lewis was recognized throughout the United States and parts of Africa as a lightening rod for positive change, yet San Quentin was where his inner journey towards his own self transformation truly began.
Lewis, 54, a father of four, co-founded Free at Last in East Palo Alto. It is a model substance abuse intervention program that included AIDs prevention and prisoner rehabilitation. He was a Certified Master Facilitator for breaking barriers and Program Planner for Gordon Graham and Company.
He was widely known for his chameleon-like ability to work with everyone from substance abusers to ex-president Bill Clinton and ex-Mayor Willie Brown. Lewis assisted police in implementing ceasefires to stop gun violence. He counseled drug addicted men and women in the mean streets of East Palo Alto.
Sentenced to 10 years to life, Nathanial Rouse has been at San Quentin for 16 years. He has the Muslim name of Shahid, which means, “Bear witness to truth”. He remembers Lewis as a man who believed in his quest and lived his life by helping others live up to their own potential.
“I met David Lewis in 1996,” said Shahid. “He came in with the Imam during the month of Ramadan.” Yet the most miraculous part for Shahid was when Lewis had told the men how he was tired of using drugs and the way he changed his life through Al Islam.
“Living Al Islam and his returning to the institutions gave weight to his change,” Shahid said. “Your record has to reflect true change.”
At San Quentin Lewis started a program named Katargeo, a Greek word that means putting behind that which binds you. In Katargeo meetings incarcerated men talked about how to cope with the rigors of prison.
Lewis was keenly focused on the pulse of substance abuse. He recognized the connection between drug use and the AIDs epidemic in the African American community.
“He was relentlessly driven,” said Michael R. Harris, Editor in Chief of the San Quentin News. “I met David at San Quentin shortly after I arrived in 2005, 2006.”
What affected Harris most was a conversation he had with Lewis after Harris had been denied by the Parole Board. “David asked me a question which ultimately made me go deep into my situation. He said, ‘Instead of focusing on what they didn’t do, did you focus on what you didn’t do?’ With that I went into myself and it created clarity for me,” Harris said. “And I believe talking to David ultimately assisted me in getting my parole date the following year.”
Over time, Lewis and Harris’s friendship took on a more profound meaning. “David Lewis was my late brother’s name,” Harris said. “And that alone created a deep bond between David and myself.”
Harris fell quiet, remembering his friend.
“All of the work he had done on himself and the energy he put into helping others had me thinking,” Harris said. “I thought about the people who witnessed him being slain. They had no idea of what type of man, what type of example was slipping away in front of their eyes.
“They had no clue.”
