The Life and Times of Louis Lomax: The Art of Deliberate Disunity

Louis Emanuel Lomax 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. He was the opening act for Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech and was on the telephone with Betty Shabazz the night he was killed. Lomax was the first black man with a syndicated television talk show and an author of several best-selling and influential books, both a driver and popularizer of virtually every element of the civil rights movement from the late 1950s to the late 1960s.

While he is almost always featured in a tertiary role in accounts of the 1960s civil rights movement, Lomax has never been given pride of place. The same can be said for accounts of American foreign policy in Africa and Asia during the decade. But Lomax was central to the civil rights movement in the decade, and while he wasn’t central to American foreign policy in any way, he was decidedly influential in popularizing the situations in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. Lomax was also one of the most important journalists of the decade, helping to cement the career of Mike Wallace, setting precedents for black journalism in radio and television, and maintaining a literary profile that included newspaper reporting, longform magazine journalism, and bestselling books like The Reluctant African and The Negro Revolt.

This book moves Lomax to the center of the civil rights narrative of the 1960s, describing his particular “art of deliberate disunity” and the influence it had on the decade’s journalism, its civil rights activism, and its public thinking about foreign policy. Lomax’s life was a study in contradictions, but so too was the decade that made him famous. He was, in many ways, both created by the national tumult of the 1960s and a creator of so many of its seminal moments. His contradictions are those of the country, his bell curve of thought developing as the nation wrestled with the seeming inevitability of civil rights change.

“Thomas Aiello, in his freewheeling, unpretentious style, does justice to Louis Lomax's inexhaustible supply of surprises. In the process, Aiello achieves a liveliness and immediacy that most historians only dream of. Aiello tirelessly tracks down facts you never heard of—leaving no room for fluff or speculation. The result is a great intellectual biography that brings the uncharted depths and breadths of black America's struggle against racism to light. Students will have a thrilling adventure story. Seasoned scholars will be shocked to learn how much they didn't know. If they're honest, they'll also see that Lomax—once black America's most popular nonfiction writer, now unjustly forgotten—beat them to many insights and discoveries they thought were their own.”

-- David L. Chappell, author of Waking from the Dream

“This incisively well-written account reminds those who may have forgotten that Louis Lomax was one of the most intriguing figures of the electrifying 1960s. Lomax's analysis of Black Nationalism, be it in the United States or Africa, remains informative. Thomas Aiello's illuminating interrogation of Lomax is a must-read.”

-- Gerald Horne, author of Fire this Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s

See below a selection of documentaries and speeches by Lomax to learn more about his thinking and his work!