"Almena Lomax"{1915-2011}

Since 1941,journalist served as the editor of Los Angeles Tribune.The Galveston Texas

native,born Hallie Almena Davis,was a civil rights activist.She raised successful children,including Michael Lomax,who later became president of the UNCF and her now-deceased daughter,Melanie,who served as president of the Los Angeles Police Commission.Educated at Los Angeles City College,she studied journalism during a time when newspapers were hiring at a fast pace - if they were white.Finally, in 1938,she got a job with Charlotta Bass,a bleck female editor at the California Eagle,earing $10 a week.As Almena popularity grew,she ventured into talk radio.Charlotta made her choose one or the other.So Almena borrowed $100 from Lucius Lomax, Sr.,who would later become her father-in-law.With the $100,she started the Los Angeles Tribune.Her hard work at the Tribune led to a circulation of 25,000.The paper was known for exposing racism of the LAPD and acts of discrimination in Los Angeles.Only five years later,in 1946,she won a prestigious literary award from the Washington Post that challenged the stereotype of black men's sexual prowess.Her protests were loud and sparked the support of many of the Tribune's readers.She was chosen to serve as a 1952 delegate to the Democratic National Convention and later led boycotts of movies "Porgy and "Bess and "Imitation of Life"because she believed they misrepresented blacks.Her paper also coverd the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst and the search for black revolutionary Angela Davis.In 1956,Almena loyal readers donations to send her to Montgomery,Alabama to cover the bus boycotts.She stayed with Martin Luther King family.Unfortunately,her husband disaproved of the trip,and the couple soon divorced.She moved herself and her six children back to the deep south in the height of the civil rights era, where she continued to work. She died on March 25th of this year.