Rochester civil rights activist and faith leader Rev. Lewis Stewart has died, the United Christian Leadership Ministry announced on Saturday. Spending six decades of activism, civil rights leadership and preaching, former Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson reflects on the impact and many lives Stewart has touched.

Stewart was more than a faith leader. He was a beloved activist, spending six decades fighting for social justice, police oversight and equality.

“I have other gifts that I have not expressed to its fullest potential,” Stewart said in 2022. “And I want to try that. I want to see where that takes me.”

“Stewart and I go back 30 or 40 years,” former Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson said. “Before I ran the city, I was at the Urban League. He was a fierce advocate for social justice. Particularly after [the death of] Daniel Prude. He really took on a much broader role and began to sit down with our community leaders understanding their concerns, policing officials and understanding that concern. And then to find a way to bring about a new and effective way of policing that served the broader interests of the community.”

As a young Black teen growing up in the 1960s, Stewart attended the March on Washington in 1963 and participated in protests and rallies calling for racial equity.

“I know the smell of tear gas,” Stewart said in 2022. “I know what tear gas can do with conflict. We share this tiny planet. We've all got to get along here and work together. If we don't, then we're going to participate in a chaotic destruction of this country.”

Rev. Stewart served as a chaplain at the New York State Department of Corrections at both Groveland Correctional and Five Points Correctional facilities, where he served as pastor to inmates and advocated for prison reform. Continuing his commitment to strengthen the voices of Black and brown communities and firmly stand up against injustices, he co-founded the UCLM in 2013 and acted as president emeritus until his death.

“He understood that policing needed to be accountable,” Johnson said. “But he also understood that our poor communities at Black and brown communities were under siege by crime. Rev. Steward sat down with his fiercest critics. He was confronted by a group of activists, and literally they tried to shut him down. And then to find common ground. And that's so lacking in today's society. I think that the example of Lewis Stewart is one that could be emulated by a lot of people.”

Stewart carried on the same fight he had to end systematic racism towards his own battle with cancer.

“There were times that he had to take a pause from his work to gain his strength and his energy and I think that just his fight over the last couple of years has created a lasting image of him as someone who was strong, who fought for life, but who recognized his own mortality and got his affairs in order,” Johnson said.

“My life and everybody's life is like a book in that sense,” Stewart said. “Chapter by chapter, until you get to the end. It's time to stop hating, really, and to stop and to start looking at each other's humanity.”Family and friends are reflecting on the many lives he has touched, paving the way for others to follow in his footsteps.

“When a person has lived his life, his or her life in a way that they left behind something that people can point to and say that that person made a difference,” Johnson said. “And I think that's an effective light, a good life to them.”