His parents named him Abraham Lincoln Lewis.

He was born in Madison County, Florida, in March 1865. Neither his parents nor his older siblings could read or write. Teaching them was a crime.

He dropped out of grammar school to work at a lumber mill. By 23, he’d saved enough to invest in Jacksonville’s first Black-owned shoe store.

In 1901, no insurance company in Florida would sell a policy to a Black resident. Lewis and six others chartered a company of their own.

That May, the Great Fire tore through Jacksonville and destroyed the office. He moved the company into his house, renamed it the Afro-American Life Insurance Company, and kept it alive until it found a permanent home at 101 East Union Street.

White cemeteries wouldn’t sell burial plots to Black families. Lewis helped build one that would.

No beach on the north Florida coastline would let a Black family swim in the Atlantic. At 70 years old, he bought 33 acres on Amelia Island and called it American Beach. 

Recreation and relaxation, without humiliation.

I cannot ever remember seeing FaFa without a tie, his great-granddaughter has said. When you wear a tie on the beach, you’re pretty proper.

To his grandchildren he was FaFa. To everyone else, Mr. Lewis. He called himself A.L.

Each week over Sunday supper, he asked the children the same question: 

What are the three B’s you must live your life with? 

Bible.

School books.

Bank books.

The marker outside his mausoleum reads Pioneer Abraham Lincoln Lewis (1865-1947).

Image Credit: A.L. Lewis Museum at American Beach