Dwight Lewis
Former Reporter, Editor and Columnist for The Tennessean
Dwight Lewis, a native of Knoxville and a graduate of Tennessee State University, is a retired award-winning journalist who worked at The Tennessean newspaper from March 1971 until October 2011 as a reporter, regional editor, columnist and editorial page editor.
Presented with the ACLU-Tennessee Life-Time Achievement Award on November 30, 2017, Dwight’s columns advanced public dialogue on topics such as mass incarceration and criminal justice reform, the death penalty, educational equity, fair treatment of immigrants, voting rights and more.
Most recently, Dwight was selected in late September 2020 to serve as co-chair of the Policing Policy Commission in Nashville. The commission, made up of 14 local citizens, was established by then Mayor John Cooper’s office in 2020 with the goal of analyzing nearly every aspect of Nashville law enforcement.
A member of First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill, and a two-time cancer survivor, Dwight was presented by the Nashville chapter of Les Gemmes Incorporated with the first Rosetta Miller Perry Literary Award on February 22, 2020.
From September 2012 until May 2014, Dwight worked part-time as an educational consultant/adviser for the Seigenthaler Honors Program out of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
In that job, Dwight helped to advise and edit stories of students from Middle Tennessee State University and Tennessee State University who were assigned to cover the local federal judicial system for The Tennessean newspaper.
In May 1981, Dwight was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Journalists, which enabled him to study at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor during the 1981-82 academic year.
In the fall of 1996, he participated in the inaugural class of the Multicultural Management Program at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Dwight has also served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize and on November 1, 1995 was one of 12 black newspaper columnists from around the nation who met with President Bill Clinton at the White House to discuss the issue of race in America.
He and other members of the Trotter Group gathered with President Clinton again in May 1997 to hear plans and give input regarding Mr. Clinton’s then upcoming speech in San Diego on race relations in America.
In October 2010, Dwight was among a group of black newspaper columnists who met with President Barack Obama at the White House.