Lewis (Elma) is born in Roxbury.

The daughter of Barbadian immigrants Clairmont and Edwardine Lewis, Elma Lewis grows up on Homestead Street, attends Boston public schools, becomes the second African-American graduate of Emerson College, and receives a master’s degree from Boston University. She works initially as an arts instructor, opens her Elma School of Fine Arts in 1950,* and founds the Playhouse in the Park summer concert series in 1966. The leading arts figure in Boston’s African-American community, Lewis is named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and awarded the Presidential Medal for the Arts. She dies on January 1, 2004, and is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery.