TVO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-18 published
Black pride of Canadian track and field
First Canadian-born black athlete to win an Olympic medal was
member of relay team at 1932 Los Angeles Games but could find
work only as a railway porter
By James CHRISTIE,
Tuesday,
November 18, 2003 - Page R9
Ray LEWIS's event in Olympic track and field was officially the
400-metre sprint, a flat race. His enduring place in Canadian
sport history, however, was earned for hurdling a barrier.
Mr. LEWIS, who died in his native Hamilton at age 94 on the weekend,
was the first Canadian born black athlete to stand upon the Olympic
medals podium. He won a bronze medal as a member of the Canadian
4 x 400-metre relay at the Los Angeles Games in 1932.
At a time where racial discrimination was the way of the world,
Mr. LEWIS didn't get to live a hero's life. Viewed today as a
pathfinder for talented black athletes, in the 1930s Mr.
LEWIS
had to all but quit his athletics training because of the demands
of his job as a railway porter with the Canadian Pacific Railways.
He spent 22 years on the trains making 250 trips from Toronto
to Vancouver. To try and stay fit, Mr.
LEWIS would train by running
alongside the rails when the train stopped on the prairies.
"He deserved so much more than he ever received," said Donovan
BAILEY, who won two gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics
in the 100 metres and 4 x 100-metre relay. "I benefited from
his going before.
"I had the honour and good fortune of having lunch with Ray
LEWIS
and talking with him. I couldn't imagine what it was like in
his day. It was so different. Ultimately, he's one who inspired
me."
Raymond Gray
LEWIS was a Hamiltonian, cradle to grave. James
WORRALL, honorary member of the International Olympic Committee
and Canada's Olympic flag bearer in 1936, recalled the family
roots in the area went back to the 1840s when his great grandparents
escaped slavery in the United States and settled near Otterville,
Ontario
The youngest child of Cornelius
LEWIS and Emma
GREEN, Ray
LEWIS
was born October 8, 1910, at 30 Clyde St. He began running races
for fun at age 9 when he entered as contest at a local picnic.
He began formal training in track and field at Central Collegiate
where the autocratic John Richard (Cap)
CORNELIUS was his coach.
In 1929, he established a Canadian high-school track-and-field
record of four championships in one day, taking the dashes at
100, 200, and 440 yards as they were measured then, and anchoring
the one-mile relay. In 1928 and 1929, Mr.
LEWIS was part of the
Central relay team that won the United States national schoolboy
title.
He briefly attended Marquette University in Milwaukee but returned
to Canada during the Depression and joined the Canadian Pacific
Railway.
Besides his Olympic medal performance with teammates Phil
EDWARDS,
Alex WILSON and Jimmy
BALL,
Mr.
LEWIS was also a Canadian champion
several times and competed in the inaugural British Empire Games
in 1930 in Hamilton and the 1934 Empire Games in London. where
he won a silver medal in the mile relay. Mr.
EDWARDS was actually
the first black athlete to win an Olympic medal for Canada in
1932, getting the 800-metre honour about a half-hour before the
relay with Mr.
LEWIS.
Mr.
EDWARDS, however, was native of British
Guyana, while Ray
LEWIS was a local.
Mr. LEWIS, who in 2001 was awarded the Order of Canada, had a
life-long attachment to the Empire Games, later renamed the Commonwealth
Games. He was an adviser to the bidders who recently sought the
2010 Games for Hamilton and vowed that if the Games were coming
back, he'd be there to greet them at the official opening at
age 100. The Hamilton bid lost out last week to one from New
Delhi, India. He lit the torch during the opening ceremonies
at the International Children's Games in Hamilton July 1, 2000.
Mr. LEWIS wrote an autobiography entitled Shadow Running in which
he detailed his life "as porter and Olympian." He was featured
in a 2002 TVOntario documentary series on racism, Journey to
Justice. "It [racism] felt worse here, because it wasn't supposed
to happen here," he recalled in the video.
Whereas white athletes had an opportunity for coaching jobs after
their careers, Mr.
LEWIS did not. His position as a porter was
one of the few jobs open to men of his race.
"The first time I met him, the Canadian team was on its way to
Fort William, Ontario, for the Canadian championships in 1933.
They travelled by Pullman and Ray was the porter. He couldn't
get the time off to compete. But he did make the 1934 Empire
Games team and was presented to the Prince of Wales, something
that was a point of honour for him. He felt it was something
to rub into all those people who had kept him off teams and out
of places because he was black," Mr.
WORRALL said.
Mr. LEWIS married Vivienne
JONES in 1941, and they adopted two
children, sons Larry and Tony.
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