Almena Lomax, Activist, Founder Of Black Weekly In L.A. Dead

Almena Lomax, a journalist, activist and founder of a black weekly in Los Angeles, has died in California at age 95.

Lomax died March 25, in Pasadena, Calif., after a short illness, her son, Michael, president and chief executive of the United Negro College Fund, told the Los Angeles Times.

Lomax, a leader in African-American journalism, founded the Los Angeles Tribune in 1941 and was its editor and chief writer until she closed it in 1960.

The paper was known for crusading against racism and witty headlines such as "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Has Got the World All Loused Up."

At the peak of the civil rights movement in 1960, Lomax uprooted her children from Los Angeles and moved to Tuskegee, Ala., to report from the front lines.

After returning to California, she was a copy editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and a reporter at the San Francisco Examiner, where she covered the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and the hunt for black revolutionary Angela Davis.

Lomax was predeceased by daughters Melanie and Michele and is survived by sons Michael, Mark and Lucius, daughter Mia, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.