TLC Beatrice CEO Reg Lewis, left, conducts business with senior executive Carl Brody.

In 1951, nine-year-old Reginald F. Lewis delivered newspapers in his Baltimore neighborhood and dreamed of someday running his own business. Lewis had already showed unusual talent, having built his route for a local weekly paper, the Afro-American, from three customers to 150 and won a trip to New York. When it came time to attend high school, he sold his first business for $100 cash and a promissory note for $50 from future profits.

An outstanding all-around athlete in high school, Lewis eventually attended Virginia State University on a football scholarship. An injury during his sophomore year changed his focus from sports to studies, where he discovered a passion for economics. That interest continued at Harvard Law School, where he immersed himself in securities law. In 1968, Lewis joined a prestigious New York law firm, and two years started his own practice.

But Lewis still faced a nearly insurmountable challenge to his dream of running a large business: Wall Street investors simply didn't loan money to blacks. Although there was surely a racial element involved, the primary reason was that not one black-owned business qualified as a high-grade investment. Then, Reg Lewis met Michael Milken. Milken was an anomaly on Wall Street for many reasons: He was a product of public schools, a Californian, and most definitely not part of the 'Eastern Establishment' coterie. Mike's success in funding non-investment grade companies and finding talented but unheralded executives would be a perfect match for Lewis.

In 1987, with funding from Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert, Lewis purchased the international foods division of Beatrice Companies for $985 million, renaming it TLC Beatrice International. The new corporation included 64 companies in 31 countries with revenues of more than $1 billion. At the time, it was the largest offshore transaction in business history.

Reg Lewis had achieved his dream.

Tragically, it wouldn't last. In October 1992, suddenly stricken with brain cancer, Lewis visited with Mike for the last time. By January, the owner of nation's largest black-owned business had died.

Yet Lewis' and Milken's influence lives on. In a 2002 speech, the Rev. Jesse Jackson recalled their impact:

“No one in the world today has done more than Mike [Milken] to redirect capital and democratize capital for average people, to take people on the margin and bring them to the mainstream. Mike provided access to capital to entrepreneurs like Reg Lewis, and thousands of others, because he knows that's how you begin to change the environment.

"We didn't know how good baseball could be before 1947 ... Once Branch Rickey brought in Jackie Robinson, everything started to get better. Today the only color that matters is on the uniforms. Whatever Branch Rickey was to Jackie Robinson, Mike Milken was to Reg Lewis."