Delano Lewis, former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa and President of NPR has died. The Las Cruces Bulletin reports Lewis passed away Wednesday while in hospice care. Born and raised in Kansas during racial segregation, Lewis went on to have a successful career in the public and private sector. He came to Las Cruces as President of NPR to tour the studios of KRWG Public Media. He said that’s when he and his wife decided to make Las Cruces their home. He came to NMSU in 2006 as Senior Fellow and established the Institute for International Relations and served as its director according to his biography on the NMSU website. Lewis authored 2 books and hosted the “Left, Right, Forward” Podcast and was a regular contributor here at KRWG Public Media. He spoke of his upbringing on an episode of Voice of the Public on June 19th, 2020.
"I grew up in the '50's where there was segregation; segregated lunch counters, segregated facilities, segregated schools. I went to the only black high school in the state of Kansas, graduated in '56 with one white student in my class; but my parents taught me to be respectful of others, not to hate, to understand that there were issues and problems, but there were ways in which to solve them, and we must do that peacefully."
On that Juneteenth program, he also talked about the issue of how we educate school children about slavery
"What's happened is, once we put slavery underneath the cover, and not talk about it, one of the things that happens is that you don't understand that we weren't considered human. We were property to be bought, sold, and traded, had no feelings. And in the case of Brown versus the Board of Education Topeka, Dr. Kenneth Clark, his testimony as a psychologist was put into the record, where he did an experiment about black and white and about the black dolls and the white dolls and the white dolls were always superior and black dolls were inferior. That's the kind of innate things that come with slavery and that has to be changed. Not only with the oppressor, but also for those who were oppressed in terms of their psyche and we have to work through that. And one last thing - South Africa understood it. They created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission where you could come and talks about it and ask for forgiveness."
One of the overwhelming sentiments in the halls here at KRWG today, is just how kind Delano was. He had many gifts, but one of them was his ability to make everyone feel important. Delano Lewis was 84 years old.