![louis lomax louis lomax](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/mxp/images/mxp.jpg)
#LOUIS LOMAX SERIES#
The series was the first time many white people had ever seen or heard of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X - and it was the first time a Black man appeared on television to report the news. The footage captured on that day became the documentary The Hate That Hate Produced, which was nationally televised in July 1959 as a five-part series on Newsbeat, presented by Wallace and Lomax.
![louis lomax louis lomax](http://www.jumpingfrog.com/images/epm15sep28/zam4547b.jpg)
![louis lomax louis lomax](https://live.staticflickr.com/2244/2489992869_9a1c5a9a13_b.jpg)
His race granting him exclusive access to and trust with the Nation, Lomax was permitted to interview Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X on camera, only assisted by two white cameramen. In early 1959, the network wanted to pursue filming a documentary on the Muslim leader, but Malcolm X refused to be interviewed by any white reporters, including Wallace. It was here that Lomax set a precedent as a journalist and activist in his own right.Īvidly involved in the movement, Lomax brought civil rights leader Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam to the attention of Mike Wallace of CBS - host of the program Newsbeat at this time. Lomax got his start in teaching philosophy at Georgia State College (now Savannah State University) he eventually began climbing the ladder as a reporter for the Baltimore Afro-American and the Chicago American until 1958, after which he began producing documentaries at WNTA-TV in New York. From educating and authoring, to reporting and broadcasting Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam into millions of American households for the very first time, Lomax created a legacy of groundbreaking journalism to become one of the most influential African-American reporters and authors of his time. Lomax was raised by a prominent Valdosta, Georgia, family who pruned him from youth for his eventual greatness. 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.AFRICANGLOBE – Born in 1922, Louis E. Yet even as it smeared the NOI as something akin to a Black supremacist terrorist organization, it also gained it thousands of new recruits. Nothing less than a hatchet job, the breathless exposé made Lomax a known name to journalists across the country. 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. Nowhere were Lomax’s ideological contradictions more evident than in his relationship with the Nation of Islam. If anything, Lomax made a name for himself as a contrarian, someone who chastised nationally prominent civil rights organizations for being too cautious while criticizing more radical Black groups for being reckless. Indeed, Aiello’s subtitle, The Art of Deliberate Disunity, refers to an August 1963 speech from Lomax days before the March on Washington where he lambasted “Negro euphoria, that seizure of silly happiness and emotional release that comes in the wake of a partial civil rights victory” (1). His stances on politics depended more on who he was in the room with-and who he might immediately disagree with. It would be an understatement to describe Lomax’s views as flexible. The pursuit of career accomplishments, more than any particular ideology, seems to have grounded Lomax’s life. Proximity to fame and the pursuit of the next advance were constant motivators, especially when he faced money issues. Presidential candidates called on him for endorsements and universities hired him to teach.Īt times, Lomax’s work was marked more by provocation than principle, more by sensationalism than substance. By the time he died in 1970, Lomax was a nationally recognized expert on Black politics. 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. This is his second work on Black journalists, his first being a history of the Atlanta World network. A historian at Valdosta State University, Aiello is an impressively productive writer, the author of no fewer than twelve books in the last thirteen years. Thomas Aiello’s new work, The Life & Times of Louis Lomax: the Art of Deliberate Disunity, is the newest addition to this literature. Jackson, and Lerone Bennett in the last decade, many other Black reporters and editors still deserve their own studies.
![louis lomax louis lomax](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7nrLl4WEAMb2LU.jpg)
Even as biographers have written on Alex Haley, Ethel Payne, Louis Austin, Emory O. We still have far too few histories of Black journalists.