(FORTUNE Magazine) – The soothing view of Central Park from a 39th-floor Manhattan office is one of the few concessions to her late husband's grandiose tastes that Loida Lewis has allowed herself. She sold the corporate jet and the French chateau, and piece by piece, she shed portions of the overseas snack-food, beverage, and grocery-store conglomerate until TLC--founded in 1987 by the intense and charismatic LBO specialist Reginald Lewis, in the largest leveraged deal ever by an African American--was little more than a bag of chips.

At its peak in 1996, TLC had sales of $2.2 billion and was No. 512 among the FORTUNE 1,000--the highest position ever attained by a black company. Last year revenues were only $344 million. In late May, Loida Lewis conceded what many had suspected--TLC Beatrice would be liquidated.

The final dissolution of a faded company like Beatrice wouldn't typically be worth noting. But Reginald Lewis cut an enormous swath across the business landscape before he died of a brain tumor six years ago. Fresh from the turnaround of the sewing-pattern company McCall's, he borrowed $985 million to acquire Beatrice Corp.'s overseas operations. Though there were rumblings that in his zeal to close the deal he overpaid, the buyout was celebrated with the fervor of a Baptist revival in African-American business circles. It was, in effect, a declaration that blacks could play with the big boys. "He showed that if given the opportunity, he could perform," says Ken Chenault, the African-American president and COO (and CEO designate) of American Express. Did Lewis' achievement help other African Americans? "I wouldn't exactly say the floodgates opened," says Maurice Cox, an executive at PepsiCo. Certainly no African American has come close to owning a company the size of TLC Beatrice. Loida Lewis sighs. "Mr. Lewis kicked open the door, and they let him in," she says. "Then they closed it again. Eventually, there will be another."

To help make this happen, her family and Reginald Lewis' foundation have each committed $1 million to help create the National Federation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Its mission will be to teach inner-city youth to run businesses. That, after all, is Reginald Lewis' legacy. He proved wrong the notion that an African American couldn't reach the pinnacle of business. His widow recalls, "When he was in the hospital, he sensed that it may be the end, and he said that maybe he should have done things differently, that maybe he pushed too hard. I said, 'No! You lived [life] to the fullest. If you didn't do what you did, the way you did it, you would not be happy.' He smiled and said, 'Yeah, I disproved the lie.' " That he did.

--Roy Johnson

REPORTER ASSOCIATE Tyler Maroney