Marques-Aquil Lewis Sr. always had a passion for Newark, and when it came time to do an Arts High School book report on a consequential person, he didn't go with Alexander the Great, Saladin, Genghis Khan, or William Wordsworth. But he did go with a poet from his hometown, who made a worldwide impact within and beyond the Beat movement: the late Amiri Baraka, who Lewis ended up interviewing in-person for his high school paper.

That's when Baraka - for whom poetry was politics and politics was poetry - introduced Lewis to The Art of War. That same Newark spirit led to Lewis sweeping the floors of the campaign headquarters of the late Senator Ronald Rice, and the beginning of another series of local lessons, with wider implications, this time from the senator, about campaign field operations.

And while Lewis - a former tackle and guard who played for East Side High, and former long-serving member of the Newark School Board - would lose his countywide bid for an Essex County commissioner's seat in June, don't count him out of a future run or tactical support for other campaigns, he says.

He's excited about what he sees and experiences in Essex, where Newark Mayor Ras Baraka's countywide victory in the gubernatorial primary, and the subsequent victory of Analilia Mejia in CD-11 signal new and vigorous energy, both in Essex and statewide, he says.

"If the Democratic Party wants to be successful, they have to align themselves with people like her [Mejia], Mayor Baraka, and [U.S. Rep.] LaMonica [McIver]," Lewis told InsiderNJ. "These are people who are not going to sell out. They have the heart to fight." They are people, says Lewis, connected - literally by blood in Mayor Baraka's case - to the heart of Newark public service. "I owe it all to the Barakas, Rices, and Paynes," Lewis said, reflecting too on the late Congressmen Donald Payne, Sr. and Donald Payne, Jr.

"Congressman Payne, Sr. and Senator Rice sat me down in high school and they told me, 'You're going to be the change we're looking for.' They saw evidence of someone who would make change in my community. My elders saw in me what I didn't see. Senior and junior, the Senator, Mayor Baraka [and Middy Baraka], and Carl Sharif poured into me wisdom to help me become a leader."

Lewis won his first school board election in 2009 at 21 years old. He served on the governing body for eight years, during tumultuous political times, when Governor Chris Christie had designs on greater charter school options in Newark as an alternative to public school. "I was not against charter schools, but I took a public oath to protect and serve our public schools," said Lewis, who ran against the charter school-affiliated slates. "I was not afraid of the governor. My mission was to serve the students of the Newark Public schools."

So, what did this last campaign teach him about county politics?

"I learned that too many people out there don't know who the county commissioners are," Lewis said. "They only know a name on the ballot. The county needs to engage with the residents better, to let them know about the services they have to offer. They have to partner better with local government and engage all Essex municipalities."

He'll be back, Lewis says, as he loves the work, especially as it concerns what he describes as the pulsing heart of the people in the town and county where he grew up, Newark and the environs, the comers and the elders, connected: the mentors and the mentored.