For sixty years, Rev. Jim Lewis addressed the social issues of the local communities he’s served as an Episcopal clergyperson. He organized parishes and communities in Maryland, West Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Delaware to address health care for women, child care, AIDS, prison and criminal justice issues, capital punishment, war, gay issues, housing, and racial issues.

Active in anti-death penalty work in West Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina and Delaware, Lewis was one of the founders of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty in North Carolina.

Of particular note is Lewis´s work on the Delmarva Peninsula (the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia), where he organized poultry process plant workers, chicken catchers, poultry farmers, environmentalists, unions, and community churches to create the Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance, an organization addressing the injustices and abuses in the poultry industry. That work was featured in a 1999 60 Minutes piece with Mike Wallace, along with his creation of a Latino community center, a health clinic for the poor, a shelter for battered Latino women, and a program to assist men coming out of prison.

After leaving the Marine Corps where he was an infantry office, Lewis became active in war and peace issues. His travels on peace missions took him to Cuba, Central America, Libya, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel/Palestine.

Lewis engaged in civil disobedience around coal mine issues, U.S. involvement in war in Central America and Iraq, and, as mentioned above, poultry labor issues.

He received the West Virginia Governor’s Martin Luther King Jr. “Living the Dream” award in 1991 and was honored in Delaware by Pacem in Terris in October, 2001, as “A Peacemaker Among Us.” He held an honorary doctorate from the Virginia Theological Seminary.

Lewis wrote regularly for a number of newspapers and has authored several books, including, West Virginia Pilgrim (1976), The Gulf War: The Churches & Peacemaking (1997). He contributed to Strike Terror No More: Theology, Ethics, and the New War (2002). He authored a chapter, “Grasshopper Power,” Workers’ Rights as Human Rights (2003) which focuses on workplace safety and the role of community organization in bringing about change in the food production system.

In June 2025, the Charleston Gazette-Mail (WV) interviewed the 89-year-old Lewis as he was being escorted across the street by local police. He was moving at a pretty good clip with the assistance of a walker. He had just been arrested, along with several others, for sitting in at their U.S. Senator’s office, in protest of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. He informed the reporters that this was about the eighth or ninth time he had been arrested. But someone needs to bring attention to the critical issues of the day.

Jim was married Judith Graham; they had a son, three daughters, nine grandchildren and—as of the time of his death in April 2026—one great-grandchild.

posted 2008; updated 2026