Lou Sealia Swarz

Lou Sealia Swarz, born Lucille Henrietta Schwartz in St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1897 to Amanda and Henry Boone Schwartz, was an American actress, monologue performer, columnist, radio host, and community activist. Over the course of her career she adopted several stage names, moving from Lucille H. Schwartz to Lou Swarz, then briefly to Linda Lou and Carol Wallis, before returning to Lou Swarz and eventually adopting the name Lou LuTour in the 1950s.

Swarz began performing character sketches and drama monologues in the Midwest and Southwest as early as 1933, building a one-woman show format in which she voiced multiple distinct characters within a single performance. Her repertoire included portrayals of Hattie Tyson from Zora Neale Hurston's novel Jonah's Gourd Vine, Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth, a French woman who falls for an American soldier during World War I, and a gypsy fortune teller. Her depiction of Sojourner Truth at the 1938 National Baptist Convention drew particular praise. During the mid-1930s she also served as a dean at Herman Dreer's Douglass University in its School of Expression, and in 1939 she worked as a head English assistant at the Booker T. Washington Vocational Training School in St. Louis. That same year she received an honorary master's degree in drama from Douglass University, becoming the youngest recipient of such a degree at the time and the first solo actress to receive one.

Her formal New York debut took place in July 1939 at The Town Hall, after which her one-woman show gained national recognition. Critics drew comparisons between her monologue work and that of Cornelia Otis Skinner. The success of that debut led Eleanor Roosevelt to invite Swarz to perform at the summer White House, and she gave two performances at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Despite this momentum, Swarz filed for bankruptcy in February 1940 following accumulated debts. The St. Louis branch of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks recognized her sorority and civic contributions in 1939 with a wooden plaque replica of her own image.

From 1942 through the end of World War II, Swarz performed for the United Service Organizations at army camps across the country, coordinating her tours with Red Cross relief efforts and bringing gifts to soldiers. These tours were conducted in partnership with her sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, spending three to four days each month on the road. The Lou Swarz chapter of the Women's Defense Corps was named in her honor for this wartime service, and she personally received the unit's citation in July 1944. She resumed national touring in 1945 with an expanded set of monologues, and in 1946 she appeared on Broadway in the play Lysistrata. In 1947 she was appointed Director of Negro Publicity for Jack Goldberg's Herald Pictures and acquired both a press secretary, Wanda Macy, and a personal assistant, Cecile Walker, a fellow member of Zeta Phi Beta. Theodore Hubbard became her professional theatrical manager in the summer of that year. The final months of 1947 and early 1948 saw Swarz tour the Southern, Midwestern, and North Carolina regions, with her performances centered on Black colleges and universities.

In 1945 Swarz joined The New York Age as a sports columnist, covering events that included the August 22, 1945, boxing match between Jimmy Bivins and Archie Moore. This work made her the first Black woman to serve as a sports reporter for a national press chain. She subsequently launched her own column, initially titled "Lou Swarz' Jottings," which grew to an international readership and was eventually renamed "Global Jotting(s)." She also maintained a separate beauty and fashion column titled "Charm.." and taught charm and personality development classes, including sessions for the Sepia Hollywood Modeling Group in 1947. She held a School of Charm in St. Louis and served as beauty consultant for the Global News Syndicate through 1951, advancing to associate editor and then associate director of the organization by 1955.

Prior to her 1939 New York debut, Swarz had hosted a radio program in St. Louis. In September 1952 she was given a daily weekday program on WWRL in New York called The Homemakers Club, which aired at 9 a.m. and featured recipes, beauty tips, general news, and rotating daily special segments with community figures. The show's immediate success led to a second signing, this time with WHOM, before the end of that same month. The WHOM program broadcast Monday through Saturday for ninety minutes each afternoon; the first half hour mirrored the WWRL format, while the remaining hour was devoted to gospel music in a segment called the Gospel Songfest, with Swarz serving as disc jockey. In May 1953 the Vocational Guidance and Workshop center in New York presented her with an award recognizing her radio work.

Throughout her life Swarz remained deeply engaged with Zeta Phi Beta, beginning her involvement in the 1930s as Basileus of the Xi Zeta chapter and rising to the national rank of Epistoleus by 1942. In November 1938 she organized a six-point program for the sorority encompassing educational, civic, social, charitable, cultural, and spiritual outreach. She also helped found the Vogue League of Expression in 1938, an organization for stage speakers and monologue performers. Among her community initiatives were a "La Cheerios" program that sent cheer cards to hospitalized individuals and a "Teen Town" program aimed at reducing juvenile delinquency among African American teenagers. The St. Louis Argus presented her with one of its annual humanitarian awards in 1964 for her hospital outreach work conducted through the sorority.