Melanie Lomax
*Melanie Lomax was born on this date in 1950. She was a Black civil rights lawyer and former head of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners.
Melanie Elizabeth Lomax was the daughter of Lucius W. Lomax, Jr., an attorney, and Hallie Almena Davis Lomax, a civil rights activist and editor of the Los Angeles Tribune. Her brother, Michael L. Lomax, is president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund. A native of Los Angeles, California, Lomax graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. In the early 1960s, her mother took her to visit the segregated South. This experience had a lasting effect on Lomax, who decided to focus on civil rights instead of following her father into criminal law.
In 1975, she started working for the Los Angeles County Counsel's office, defending county agencies in labor and civil matters. She founded her firm in 1984, specializing in age, sex, and racial discrimination cases. Appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley, Lomax was the first Black woman to lead the Los Angeles Police Commission, which she headed when motorist Rodney King was beaten by four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department. During and after the ensuing Rodney King riots, she won many friends and enemies in its aftermath when she waged a high-profile battle to oust controversial Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to transform the department's culture.
Lomax was also responsible for the Emergency Preparedness and Maintenance of LAX. She was also Defense Counsel for the Veterans Administration and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority. Melanie Lomax died in an automobile accident on September 10, 2006.
