Dr. Joice Christine Bailey Lewis grew up on a sharecropping farm in Alabama where black people were considered inferior to white people. She was subjected to substandard education and was denied attendance at the local Public University not withstanding that she had the second highest IQ in the city among black and white students. Dr. Lewis spent 27 years struggling to obtain a doctoral degree while working full time and rearing three children. Dr. Lewis achieved the highest level of employment as Superintendent of Schools and State Chief Financial Officer for Alabama. She retired from working at age seventy-four. Now at age eighty-five, she is focusing on writing books for children. Dr. Lewis has three children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.