John Donald Lewis was born in Paterson, New Jersey on October 6, 1905 to John T. and Mary Lewis. He graduated from Kingston High School in Kingston, Pennsylvania in 1924, earning the B.A. degree in Political Science from Oberlin College in 1928 and the M.A. (1929) and Ph.D. (1934) degrees in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Lewis taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1931 to 1935 before becoming Assistant Professor of Political Science at Oberlin College. He reached the rank of Associate Professor in 1942 and full Professor in 1948. From 1951 until his retirement in 1972, he was Professor of Government, serving as chairman of the department from 1948 to 1950 and from 1953 to 1970. He returned from 1975 to 1976 as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government. In 1981, Oberlin College awarded Lewis an honorary L.L.D. degree.

John Lewis was a widely respected teacher in the fields of European and American liberal democratic theory and American andcomparative government. His undergraduate courses at Oberlin were among the first to be offered in American political theory. He trained noted political scientists Sheldon Wolin (A.B. 1944), Cecelia Kenyon (A.B. 1943), and Kenneth Waltz (A.B. 1948). In 1950-51, Lewis served as Visiting Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and from 1959-60 held a Fulbright Senior Fellowship at Oxford University. He also taught during summers at Columbia University (1954) and the universities of Michigan (1949), Minnesota (1951), and California at Berkeley (1957). After retiring, he continued to teach at Case Western Reserve University, Colorado College, and Pennsylvania State University.

Lewis' scholarship embraced the fields of Marxism, comparative politics, democratic theory, and American political thought. His research was supported by fellowships from the Social Science Research Council (1939-40) and the Guggenheim Foundation (1943-44). His dissertation, based on research conducted at the University of Berlin under a grant from the Institute of International Education (1932-33), was published as The Genossenschaft-theory of Otto von Gierke: A Study in Political Thought (Madison, 1935). Lewis' other books include Against the Tyrant: The Tradition and Theory of Tyrannicide (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957), with his Oberlin colleague Oscar Jaszi, and Anti-Federalists versus Federalists: Selected Documents (San Francisco: Chandler Pub. Co., 1967). The article, "Representative Government in Evolution" (American Political Science Review, XXVI, No. 2, April 1932) was coauthored with historian Charles A. Beard (1874-1948). He was a frequent contributor to the American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, and the International Journal of Ethics. From 1952 to 1962, he served on the editorial board of the American Political Science Review and as book review editor from 1956 to 1959. He also authored biographical essays on the German political philosopher, Otto von Gierke, for the Encyclopedia of World Biography and the International Encyclopedia of Social Science.

Lewis was an influential member of the Oberlin College Political Science Department and of the profession at large. Elected repeatedly to the Oberlin College Faculty Council, he also chaired the General Faculty Council Committee to Study the A.A.U.P. Salary Report (1946-47). He served at various times on the Educational Policy Committee and on the committees on Productive Work, Buildings, and College Planning. From 1956 to 1957, he was President of the Oberlin chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He sat on the national council of the American Political Science Association (APSA) from 1957 to 1959 and served as APSA Vice-President from 1962 to 1963. From 1966 to 1968, he was vice president of the American Society of Legal and Political Philosophy. At the regional level, Lewis served as president of the Midwest Political Science Association from 1967 to 1968.

In June 1933, John Lewis married Toronto native Ewart Kellogg (1908-68; A.B. University of Wisconsin 1929, Ph.D, 1934). From 1936 to 1939, she was Instructor in history at Western Reserve University and served as Lecturer in history at Oberlin College from 1954 to 1959. Her book Medieval Political Ideas (London: Routledge & Paul, 1954) provided a valuable introduction to the political thought of the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries.

John and Ewart Lewis had three children: David (b. 1941), Donald (b. 1946), and Ellen (b. 1948). Ewart Lewis died on December 21, 1968 at the age of 60. In 1972, John Lewis married Mary Jane Crow Miller (b. 1924), whose children from a previous marriage are David James Miller (b. 1948) and Leslie Jane Miller(b. 1949). John Lewis died on January 23, 1988 in Oberlin.