Violet Lewis was one of three black women to found an HBCU since the 1860s. She started it as a secretary school in Indianapolis because she just wanted black women to have the ability to work in corporate offices. The school did extremely well in Indianapolis and so well Detroit offered her to open a campus in Detroit. All of the first black office employees for Ford and GM and Michigan Bell were all graduates of Lewis College of Business. Because they couldn't adjust with the times, they were left behind. So they closed their doors in 2013. They reopened the college on May 2nd of 2020 to here in Detroit, Michigan.