Michael Lucius Lomax (born October 2, 1947) is an American educator and former elected official who has served as president and chief executive officer of the United Negro College Fund since 2004. From 1997 to 2004, he served as president of Dillard University, a historically black university HBCU. In addition, Lomax was elected as a member and then chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, the first African American elected official in history to lead a major county government in the State of Georgia.
Michael Lomax was born October 2, 1947, in Los Angeles, California, to Lucius W. Lomax, Jr. (1910–73), a Los Angeles attorney, and Hallie Almena Davis Lomax (1915-2011), a journalist. [1] His sister, Melanie E. Lomax, the Los Angeles civil rights lawyer, died in 2006.
Lomax attended Morehouse College at the age of sixteen years old, and graduated magna cum laude in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in English and minors in Spanish and history. He and three classmates were the first students inducted into Phi Beta Kappa at Morehouse. [2]
He went on to earn a master's degree in English literature at Columbia University in 1969, and a doctor of philosophy in American and Afro-American literature from Emory University in 1984.
Lomax taught literature at Morehouse College and Spelman College, Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia. [3]
From 1997 to 2004, Lomax served as president and professor of English and African world studies at Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana. [4] [5] During his tenure at Dillard, student enrollment at the private, historically black university increased by 49 percent, private funding by 300 percent and alumni giving more than 2,000 percent. In addition, President Lomax led an aggressive $60 million campus renovation program to improve the living and learning environment for Dillard students. [6]
Lomax began his career as an Atlanta public servant in the 1970s. He held several positions, including director of research and special assistant to Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, and the first director of the City of Atlanta Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs. [7] [8]
In 1978, Dr. Lomax ran for public office and was elected to the Fulton County Fulton County of Commissioners. Two years later, he was elected chairman of the board, becoming the first African-American to lead a major county government in Georgia. He served as board chairman for 12 years, overseeing a $500 million annual operating budget and some 5,000 county employees. As a commissioner, he helped bring the 1988 Democratic National Convention and the 1996 Olympic Games to Atlanta. He also spearheaded a number of major construction projects, including building Georgia 400, expanding and renovating Grady Hospital, and constructing the new Fulton County government center. He also founded the Fulton County Arts Council, the National Black Arts Festival, [9] and served as commissioner of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs in Atlanta. [10] [2]
In 1989 and 1993, he was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Atlanta. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
Since 2004, Lomax has served as President and CEO of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships and educational support for African American students. Under his leadership, UNCF has raised over $5 billion, providing financial assistance and scholarships to more than 500,000 students and supporting 37 HBCUs. [16] [17] [18]
In 2024, UNCF received a $100 million unrestricted grant from the Lilly Endowment to support UNCF $1 billion capital campaign. The gift is the largest donation in UNCF's history [19] and expands the pooled endowment for its 37 member HBCU institutions. [20]
He is a board member and/or former board members of several institutions, including Teach for America, Emory University, The Carter Center, and a member of Sigma Pi Phi fraternity. U.S. President George W. Bush appointed him to the President's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and United States Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert appointed Lomax to the National Museum of African American History and Culture Plan for Action Presidential Commission.
Lomax and his wife, Cheryl Ferguson Lomax, have two daughters, Michele and Rachel. In addition, Lomax is the father of Deignan Cleage Lomax, who graduated from Dillard University in 2000, and his oldest daughter from a previous marriage to playwright and author Pearl Cleage.
He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Lomax was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 2000 at Dillard, and was later awarded the organization's highest honor, the Laurel Crowned Circle.
UNCF, the United Negro College Fund, also known as the United Fund, is an American philanthropic organization that funds scholarships for black students and general scholarship funds for 37 private historically black colleges and universities. UNCF was incorporated on April 25, 1944, by Frederick D. Patterson, Mary McLeod Bethune, and others. UNCF is headquartered at 1805 7th Street, NW in Washington, D.C. In 2005, UNCF supported approximately 65,000 students at over 900 colleges and universities with approximately $113 million in grants and scholarships. About 60% of these students are the first in their families to attend college, and 62% have annual family incomes of less than $25,000. UNCF also administers over 450 named scholarships.
Andrew Jackson Young Jr. is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and a close confidant to Martin Luther King Jr. Young later became active in politics, serving as a U.S. Congressman from Georgia, United States Ambassador to the United Nations in the Carter Administration, and 55th Mayor of Atlanta. He was the first African American elected to Congress from Georgia since Reconstruction, as well as one of the first two African Americans elected to Congress from the former Confederacy since Reconstruction, alongside Barbara Jordan of Texas. Since leaving office, Young has founded or served in many organizations working on issues of public policy and political lobbying.
Morehouse College is a private historically Black, men's, liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. Anchored by its main campus of 61 acres (25 ha) near Downtown Atlanta, the college has a variety of residential dorms and academic buildings east of Ashview Heights. Along with Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and the Morehouse School of Medicine, the college is a member of the Atlanta University Center consortium.
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving African Americans. Most of these institutions were founded during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War and are concentrated in the Southern United States. They were primarily founded by Protestant religious groups, until the Second Morill Act of 1890 required educationally segregated states to provide African American, public higher-education schools in order to receive the Act's benefits.
Spelman College is a private, historically Black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a founding member of the Atlanta University Center academic consortium. Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman awarded its first college degrees in 1901 and is the oldest private historically Black liberal arts institution for women.
Clark Atlanta University is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Founded on September 19, 1865 as Atlanta University, it consolidated with Clark College to form Clark Atlanta University in 1988. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
The Atlanta University Center Consortium is a collaboration between four historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in southwest Atlanta, Georgia: Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College, and the Morehouse School of Medicine. It is the oldest and largest contiguous consortium of African-American higher education institutions in the United States. The consortium structure allows for students to cross-register at the other institutions in order to attain a broader collegiate experience. They also share the Robert W. Woodruff Library, a dual degree engineering program, and career planning and placement services and the AUC Data Science Initiative.
Emory University's Goizueta Business School is a private business school of Emory University located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is named after Roberto C. Goizueta, former Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company.
Courtland Simmons Winn (1863–1940) was a politician, lawyer, and civic leader from the State of Georgia.
Grady Memorial Hospital is the public hospital for the city of Atlanta. The hospital is ranked as the tenth largest public hospital in the United States and is a Level I trauma center.
Melanie Elizabeth Lomax, was a civil rights lawyer and former head of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners.
Robert Michael Franklin Jr. is an American author, theologian, ordained minister, and academic administrator who served as the tenth president of Morehouse College from 2007 to 2012. Franklin is a visiting scholar in residence at Stanford University's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. In January 2014, he became director of the religion program at the Chautauqua Institution.
A municipal election in the City of Atlanta was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2009. Atlanta is the capital of the state of Georgia and is the largest city in Georgia and is the center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the South.
Hallie Almena Lomax was an African American journalist and civil rights activist.
Black Atlantans form a major population group in the Atlanta metropolitan area, encompassing both those of African-American ancestry as well as those of recent Caribbean or African origin. Atlanta has long been known as a center of black entrepreneurship, higher education, political power and culture; a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement.
Pearl Cleage is an African-American playwright, essayist, novelist, poet and political activist. She is currently the Playwright in Residence at the Alliance Theatre and at the Just Us Theater Company. Cleage is a political activist. She tackles issues at the crux of racism and sexism, and is known for her feminist views, particularly regarding her identity as an African-American woman. Her works are highly anthologized and have been the subject of many scholarly analyses. Many of her works across several genres have earned both popular and critical acclaim. Her novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (1997) was a 1998 Oprah's Book Club selection.
Robert Frederick Smith is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. He graduated from Cornell University with a chemical engineering degree and from Columbia Business School with an MBA, before working as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. In 2019, while delivering the commencement speech at Morehouse College, Smith pledged to pay off the entire $34 million of student loan debt of all of the members of the 2019 graduating class.
Samuel Woodrow Williams was a Baptist minister, professor of philosophy and religion, and Civil Rights activist. Williams was born on February 12, 1912, in Sparkman then grew up in Chicot County, Arkansas. An African American, Williams attended Morehouse College where he received his bachelor's degree in philosophy and later attended Howard University earning his master's degree in divinity.
Albert Walter Dent was an academic administrator who served initially as business administrator of Flint-Goodridge Hospital and later as president of Dillard University (1941–1969), a predominantly black liberal arts college in New Orleans, Louisiana. In these roles, he was a community leader who improved education and health care for African-Americans and impoverished people in the American South.
William Johnson Trent, Jr. (1910-1993) was an African-American economist, non-profit director and civil rights activist from Atlanta, Georgia.