Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Business Empire

Black Enterprise, Feb, 1995 by Alfred Edmond, Jr.

"Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?": How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-dollar Business Empire, by Reginald F. Lewis and Blair S. Walker, was not written under ideal conditions. The work was begun as an autobiography. But Lewis died suddenly at age 50 of brain cancer, before he could make significant progress on the effort.

However, the Lewis family, led by his widow, Loida, pressed to have the story told, ultimately choosing USA Today financial writer Walker to complete the book. The result is a revealing look at a man who was pretty much unknown outside of the black business community before his amazing acquisition, turnaround and sale of the McCall Pattern Co., and his subsequent $985 million purchase of Beatrice International Foods in 1987.

The merging of Walker's dedicated, often brilliant reporting (the chapters on Lewis' early years are especially rewarding) and Lewis' own notes, printed in bold italics, had to have made the book a tough editing job. There are a few redundancies, especially in the chapters where the deals are detailed for posterity, and their historic nature unnecessarily belabored.

However, the book is genuinely uplifting when it gives an unflinching account of an intelligent, ambitious young black man (not without his flaws) who achieved the extraordinary the old-fashioned way: through goal setting, hard work and sacrifice. As such, "Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?" is a requisite addition to an American business library that includes far too few books about accomplished African-American entrepreneurs.