He graduated from the Catholic Mount Saint Joseph High School there and took courses at several universities in Baltimore, as well as studying art informally with Earl Hofmann and Joe Sheppard.

[3] Lewis traced his life in activism back to a protest against the segregated Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in 1963, which he had intended on sketching as a journalist for Catholic publications before feeling compelled to participate.

As they waited for the police to arrive and arrest them, the group passed out Bibles and calmly explained to draft board employees the reasons for their actions.

The culmination of his work there was a portfolio of etchings, The Trial and Prison, published in fifty copies to raise funds for the movement in 1969, while Lewis was briefly out on appeal.

Produced in a prison art studio Lewis had to share with mafia members (for whom it doubled as stash house for smuggled wine and spaghetti), at times using ink of his own concoction from ashes, coffee or cocoa powder, the etchings depict the psychic distress of his fellow inmates and ghostly, near apocalyptic confrontations between police and protestors.

"[9] The day after the invasion of Iraq on March 21, 2003, Lewis and 17 other activists using the PeaceChain blocked the Natick Chemical Weapons Research Laboratory and were arrested.