Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites to present Annual Jeanette Barres Zug Lecture

Credit: Swarthmore College/Dept. of Interior

Join Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites on Saturday, October 17 at 3 p.m. inside the Gemeinhaus, for the annual Jeanette Barres Zug Lecture. This year’s speaker is the Honorable Wilma A. Lewis, Chief Judge for the District Court of the Virgin Islands, to discuss ‘The Amazing Trip from a Small Island and Back Again.’

The lecture will be held in the Saal of the Gemeinhaus, 66 W. Church Street, at 3 p.m. Honorable Wilma A. Lewis will be speaking about a life of service. A wine and hors d’oeuvres reception will follow the lecture. The event is free for members of Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites and $10 for non-members. Guests will have the opportunity to explore the Gemeinhaus before and after the lecture. Reservations are requested; space is limited. Please contact Linda Seifert at lseifert@historicbethlehem.org or call 610-882-0450 ext. 10 to reserve a seat.

Wilma A. Lewis became the first woman to serve as a district court judge in the Virgin Islands in July 2011. Having assumed the position of Chief Judge in August 2013, Judge Lewis is the first woman to serve as Chief Judge for the District Court of the Virgin Islands.

Judge Lewis’ appointment to the federal bench is her fourth presidential appointment with U.S. Senate confirmation and caps a series of firsts in her professional career. She was the first African-American to serve as Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the U.S. Department of the Interior the first woman to serve as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office in the country, and the first African-American to serve as Inspector General for the Department of the Interior.

As an active member of the Moravian Church, Judge Lewis is a past chair and current member of the board of trustees of Moravian Theological Seminary. She served multiple terms as president and member of the board of trustees of Faith Moravian Church of the Nation’s Capital, founded and directed three handbell choirs at Faith Moravian Church, and now directs a newly formed Moravian handbell choir on St. Croix, Virgin Islands.

Judge Lewis earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, with distinction, from Swarthmore College in 1978, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1981.