Alain LeRoy Locke

Abstract

After agreeing to write this chapter, but before beginning the project, Jeffrey Stewart had just published his extensive biography of Locke titled The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke (2017). The tome is over 900 pages in length. Michael P. Jeffries (2018) favorably reviewed the book with the subject described as an art lover who preached revolution. In describing Stewart’s role as the curator of the American Negro Exposition in Chicago in 1940, the professor is described as one of the most prominent African Americans. Jeffries says that Stewart reviewed many letters. An earlier biography of Locke by Christopher Buck titled Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy (2005) references 220 boxes of papers at the Howard University Library. Another well-known biography of Locke was by Leonard Harris and Charles Molesworth (2008) (Let me begin with a personal note. In looking for background information, I went to a copy of The New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975) to review the entry for Locke. Curiously, there is no entry. Somewhat surprised, but suspecting homosexuality as the reason, I looked for an entry for Bayard Rustin. Again, there is not an entry. With regard to the latter there are of course entries for his African American contemporaries who were in the Civil Rights Movement. There is an entry for Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Wondering if gays were excluded, it seems unlikely that James Baldwin would be excluded. He is in fact listed as is Langston Hughes. Locke is sufficiently well known to have a building at Howard University named after him. It is unclear why he is excluded from some histories). This chapter adds to the key findings in these and other works to tease out what can be learned from them to help build a new Africa.