Mr. Mack Lewis Foundation

The Mr. Mack Lewis Archive

Mr. Mack Lewis In the Press.

For decades, journalists, filmmakers and Baltimore institutions have documented the fighters, families and community shaped by Mack Lewis. Explore the interviews, broadcasts and stories that preserve that history.

Featured

NEWS

Mack Lewis, boxing trainer, dies at 92

The Baltimore Sun

The Sun’s obituary is the fullest public record of Mack Lewis’s life: the climb up the stairs to the old Eager Street gym six nights a week, the world-ranked fighters he managed in the 1960s, and the 1994 world title Vincent Pettway won after Lewis had spent half a century chasing one. It also records the move to Bond Street and the many amateurs he trained who went on to succeed outside the ring.

View the Original StoryThe legacy of Mr. Mack Lewis

Published by The Baltimore Sun. The story belongs to its publisher; we link to the original.

From the Archive.

  • NEWS

    Commentary: Mack Lewis Gym inspiring a community through grit and transformation

    AFRO American Newspapers, by Cory V. McCray

    Maryland State Senator Cory V. McCray, who represents East Baltimore’s 45th District, writes about why the gym still matters. He traces it from the day Mack Lewis opened its doors at Broadway and Eager Street in 1951 to the work Gregory Wilkes and Coach Warren Boardley carry on today. He also describes the renovations a $200,000 capital bond paid for, and the food distribution, health screenings and computer lab that make the gym a community hub.

    View the Original StoryOur story

  • VIDEO

    Inside PressBox July 14, 2013: Vincent Pettway

    PressBox Sports

    An episode of PressBox’s Inside PressBox program featuring Vincent Pettway, the East Baltimore fighter who came up under Mack Lewis and won a world title with him in his corner. It is a chance to hear one of the gym’s best-known champions in his own words.

    Watch the OriginalThe legacy of Mr. Mack Lewis

  • VIDEO

    Baltimore’s Mack Lewis Gym: Uplifting Youth through Boxing

    The Real News Network

    A video visit to the gym years after Mack Lewis’s death. The fighters and trainers who keep it running explain why it still matters to the neighborhood as a safe place to train, and why they see carrying on his work as their job. The page includes a full transcript.

    Watch the OriginalBoxing program

  • ARCHIVE

    Mack Lewis Boxing Gym | East Baltimore | (1978)

    Baltimore History Channel, by @baltimorehistorychannel

    Archival footage from 1978, inside the Mack Lewis Boxing Gym in East Baltimore, shared by the Baltimore History Channel. A rare look at the gym in Mr. Mack Lewis’s own time. It plays here in Instagram’s own player, or you can open it on Instagram.

    Watch the OriginalThe legacy of Mr. Mack Lewis

  • VIDEO

    GBMC Rx: Community health and partnerships

    Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC)

    Greater Baltimore Medical Center’s video on its community health partnerships across Baltimore, including the Coats for Kindness drive with WMAR 2 News. GBMC was a partner in the drive, and the Mr. Mack Lewis Foundation was one of the groups that handed the coats out to families.

    Watch the OriginalCommunity outreach

  • VIDEO

    A Night Of Unity: National Night Out with the Mr. Mack Lewis Foundation

    That Roamin' Reporter

    That Roamin' Reporter covers National Night Out with the Mr. Mack Lewis Foundation, a night that brings neighbors together at the gym. It shows the community side of the Foundation’s work, beyond the boxing ring.

    Watch the OriginalCommunity outreach

  • NEWS

    WMAR's Coats for Kindness Drive delivers over 1,200 coats to Baltimore community groups

    WMAR 2 News, by Kara Burnett

    WMAR 2 News and GBMC teamed up on a winter coat drive, and the Mr. Mack Lewis Foundation was one of two community groups chosen to hand the coats out. The Foundation received more than 600 coats for families and neighbors in need. The story describes the Foundation’s youth programs across the city, and Executive Director Gregory Wilkes talks about the need he sees every day.

    View the Original StoryCommunity outreach

  • NEWS

    Sting from teens' bullet wounds extends into East Baltimore boxing gym

    WMAR 2 News

    WMAR 2 News reports on gun violence in East Baltimore and the gym’s answer to it. Executive Director Gregory Wilkes and coaches Warren Boardley Sr. and Lonnie Davis talk about why they keep reaching out to young people, and how training teaches discipline and self-control that carry beyond the ring.

    View the Original StoryBoxing program

  • NEWS

    ‘He’s a prodigy’: East Baltimore boxer wins 3rd Golden Glove Championship

    WMAR 2 News

    WMAR 2 News reports on a young East Baltimore boxer winning his third Golden Gloves championship. It is a story of the talent, discipline and coaching that East Baltimore’s boxing community keeps producing. Read the full story at WMAR.

    View the Original StoryBoxing program

  • NEWS

    August's Community Care: The Mack Lewis Gym

    WEAA

    WEAA named the Mack Lewis gym its Community Cares partner for August 2017. The station describes the gym as a safe place where young people learn to box and to work through life’s problems with a clear head, and notes that former IBF champion Vincent Pettway was leading it at the time, carrying on what Mack Lewis started.

    View the Original StoryBoxing program

  • NEWS

    Remembering Baltimore Boxing Legend ‘Mr. Mack’

    CBS Baltimore (WJZ), by Gigi Barnett

    WJZ reports on the death of Mack Lewis at 92, after more than 50 years training young men at his East Baltimore gym. Friends and family remember a mentor who used boxing to steer young people away from the street, and the story notes the city’s plan to name a nearby street Mack Lewis Way.

    View the Original StoryThe legacy of Mr. Mack Lewis

  • NEWS

    Mack Lewis, 1918-2010

    Slate, by Tom Scocca

    Writer Tom Scocca remembers his own time around the old gym: the cold, the tin ceiling, the plastic over the windows, and the respect everyone was expected to show “Mr. Mack.” It is a personal remembrance that captures the gym as a place, not just the record of the man who ran it.

    View the Original StoryThe legacy of Mr. Mack Lewis

  • NEWS

    Mack Lewis offered troubled kids a way out through boxing

    The Baltimore Sun, by Kevin Cowherd

    Columnist Kevin Cowherd writes about what Mack Lewis did for the young men who came up the stairs at Eager and Broadway. Through Vincent Pettway’s story and the memories of family, the column shows a trainer who checked report cards, drove fighters to bouts and cared more about the men they became than the titles they won.

    View the Original StoryMentorship

  • NEWS

    Friends prove they’re in Lewis’ corner

    The Baltimore Sun

    A 2001 Sun column breaks the news that friends of Mack Lewis, from local business owners to union officials, were coming together to give him a new gym. At 82, after nearly six decades of climbing the stairs to his gym at Broadway and Eager, he would get a ground-floor space with no rent. The column also notes that a foundation was being set up in his name to keep the new gym going.

    View the Original StoryOur story

  • ARCHIVE

    Mr. Mack’s Gym: For 49 years, it’s where boys have gone to become fighting men

    The Baltimore Sun

    A Sun photo essay from 1995, when Mr. Mack was 77 and had spent 49 years turning boys into fighters at Broadway and Eager Street. Staff photographer George W. Holsey followed him for weeks, at the gym, at home and at a Vincent Pettway bout, the year after Pettway became the gym’s first world champion.

    View the Original StoryThe legacy of Mr. Mack Lewis

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The Story Continues.

Mack Lewis is still showing up for East Baltimore.

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