Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/389

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OUR WOMEN IN JOURNALISM.
381

he moves in other spheres. As she wins laurels, he accords her the royal crown. This is especially true of journalism. Doors are opened before we knock, and as well-equipped young women emerge from the class-room, the brotherhood of the race, men whose energies have been repressed and distorted by the interposition of circumstances, give them opportunities to prove themselves; and right well are they doing this, by voice and pen."

Miss Lillian A. Lewis, (Bert Islew,) Boston Correspondent of Our Women and Children and Ex-Editress of The Advocate.

Miss Lillian Lewis is among the youngest and brightest of the Afro-American women writers, and her career in journalism, although a comparatively short one, has been exceptionally brilliant. Naturally of a literary bent, and an excellent scholar in literature and composition, she showed marked talent in this direction in her earlier days.

During her successful school life, she wrote, besides essays, a number of lectures upon various topics. There was a vein of humor running through each, but under it all was a deal of practical thought. Her first effort in the lecture field was upon temperance, she, on several occasions, addressing temperance societies. She also wrote and delivered lectures upon "Man's Weal and Woman's Woe,"—and "Dead Heads and Live Beats;" and was eminently successful with the one under the caption: "The Mantle of the Church covereth a Multitude of Humbugs." This discourse, with dashes of pertinent witticism, struck at the root of a good deal of pious hypocrisy which is constantly practiced, This was delivered by the young writer four or five times in Boston, and two or three times in small towns in the suburbs. The innate love of composition alone tempted Miss Lewis to enter the lecture