Louis E. Lomax: The first Black Journalist who introduced Malcolm X to The World
Louis Emanuel Lomax (August 16, 1922 – July 30, 1970) rose from a childhood in the deepest of the Deep South, Valdosta, Georgia, to become one of the most successful black journalists of the twentieth century. He was the man who introduced Malcolm X to the nation, remaining a close ally of both Malcolm and Martin Luther King for the duration of their lives. He helped organize the 1968 Olympic boycott and was there with Harry Edwards at the event’s initial press conference. He was in the nation’s capital for the success of the March on Washington and for the confusion of Resurrection City (the tent city that was home to the Poor People’s Campaign, which is called “the biggest protest on the Mall that nobody’s ever heard of.” Between May 15 to June 24, 1968). He was the opening act for Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech (April 3, 1964) and was on the telephone with Betty Shabazz the night he was killed (February 21, 1965).
In the decades following World War II, Louis Lomax was one of the leading commentators on Black life in the United States, the author of five books and countless stories, and the host of his own syndicated television talk show. By the time he died in 1970, Lomax was a nationally recognized expert on Black politics. Presidential candidates called on him for endorsements and universities hired him to teach.
For all of his accomplishments, Lomax’s work was marked more by provocation or incitement than by principles, and more by sensationalism than substance. Closeness to fame and the pursuit of the next advance were his constant motivators, especially when faced with money issues, and he had several money issues during his lifetime.
Lomax’s life was grounded in the pursuit of career accomplishments and was not motivated by any particular ideology. It would be an understatement to describe Lomax’s views as flexible. His stances on politics depended more on who he was in the room with—and who he might immediately disagree with. According to Thomas Aiello’s recent book entitled, Lomax Lomax, the art of deliberate disunity, Lomax was an expert in “The Art of Deliberate Disunity”, which refers to an August 1963 speech from Lomax, days before the March on Washington, where he lambasted the upcoming March as “Negro euphoria, that seizure of silly happiness and emotional release that comes in the wake of a partial civil rights victory”. If anything, Lomax made a name for himself as someone who chastised nationally prominent civil rights organizations for being too cautious while criticizing more radical Black groups for being reckless. Lomax seemed to play both sides, but never committed to either side.
Lomax’s ideological contradictions were most evident in his relationship with the Nation of Islam. Lomax’s work with Mike Wallace on The Hate That Hate Produced, a CBS television documentary on the NOI, catapulted him to national prominence in 1959.
It was nothing less than a hatchet job, an exposé which made Lomax a known name to journalists across the country. Yet even as his documentary smeared the NOI as something akin to a Black supremacist terrorist organization, the documentary also gained NOI thousands of new recruits. Lomax may have helped a white journalist condemn the NOI on national television, but the documentary’s positive impact on the group’s membership rolls kept him in the good graces of both Muhammad and Malcolm X.
This was Lomax’s dual legacy—he helped a white news host and white-owned network smear the NOI, but in the process he made his career, dramatically boosted Elijah Muhammad’s profile, and forged a lifelong friendship with Malcolm. Ironically, according to Aiello’s book, Lomax agreed with much of the NOI’s diagnosis of America’s racism, even while he took issue with its advocacy of separatism and Black supremacy.
As Lomax became a leading commentator on Black politics, he attracted his share of critics among the African American liberals. More than a few Black writers were irritated at Lomax’s eagerness to assume the role of gatekeeper for whites seeking entrance into discussions on race and civil rights.
Lomax was open in the range of Black political leaders he engaged. He had frequent conversations with everyone from the NOI to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He seemed to hold the NAACP in particular disdain, repeatedly making it Exhibit A in his arguments on the ineffectiveness of overly cautious Black organizations, but he also collaborated with the group at times. Ironically, Lomax accommodated members of the racist John Birch Society on his television show and especially the personal friendships he had with Birch leaders like John Rousselot, a conservative California congressman and regional director of the Society in the Western states.
Two incidences stand out that cast question on exactly where Lomax stood during the Civil Rights era: The 1967 Detroit riots coverage and the MLK assassination coverage in 1968. In an article published in the Detroit News (white newspaper) right after the Detroit riot, Lomax denounced the Black leaders in the city, essentially implying that “the activists assisted in attacks on police officers in Detroit”. Carefully relying on innuendo without making explicit accusations of criminal activity, Lomax insisted that the certain black leaders “disappeared during the uprising,” which he maintained “raises doubts and suspicions that will prevent the achievement of any kind of Negro unity for a long time to come.” Lomax made these accusations without any evidence or named sources.
After the MLK assassination, Lomax made an even more unsupported and sensational claim. Lomax wrote a 1968 article in the Boston Globe following Martin Luther King’s assassination which opened with a dramatic claim: “While White America weighs the fine points of the federal riot report, Black America is busy stockpiling weapons. Not merely bullets and rifles. But bazookas, machine guns, and grenades.”
During that time, these were astonishing assertions, based entirely on unnamed sources. In neither case does Lomax offer any explanation of how he knows these things. According to Aeillo, Lomax was open to pursuing conspiracy theories, and Lomax did conduct investigations of both Malcolm X and King’s murders.
With such inflammatory words, people wondered if activists were intent on armed warfare? In the Detroit News piece, it was possible that Lomax’s “reporting” may have been planted by law enforcement, a practice of the era that is well documented. Lomax, according to Aiello, was not afraid to talk to the FBI. In fact, on at least one occasion he sought out the Bureau to volunteer information he believed identified associates of George Wallace as responsible for King’s murder.
Lomax died in a terrible car crash in 1970, at the young age of forty-seven. The official reports state that he was killed in an automobile accident due to driver error. But his wife never accepted that explanation, nor did her lawyers. Some have even suggested that Lomax was sabotaged in order to halt his inquiries into Malcolm and King’s deaths, but no inquiry was made after the official report.
In the final analysis, Lomax defied easy explanation. Perhaps the best interpretation that Aiello offers us came from Bill Lane of the Los Angeles Sentinel, writing in 1967. Lomax was “always being called a ‘sellout to the Negro,’ ‘anti-Jewish,’ a ‘snob who refused to live among the people he claims to represent,” Lane remarked. But maybe Lomax really wasn’t as fixated on attacking others as he was on advancing himself. “Truth is, Louis Lomax represents one entity—Louis Lomax”.
Sources:
https://www.aaihs.org/on-the-life-and-legacy-of-black-journalist-louis-lomax/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Lomax
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