Alain Locke, educator, writer, and philosopher, is best remembered as the leader and chief interpreter of the Harlem Renaissance. Born on September 13, 1885 in Philadelphia, Locke attended Central High School in Philadelphia from 1898 to 1902. He was called called “Roy” as a boy, but at the age of 16, Locke chose to use the first name of “Alain”. He graduated first in his class from Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, a teacher’s college, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree. Locke completed Harvard College’s four-year course in three years.
By 1907, Locke received his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude. He was the first Black Rhodes scholar, studying at Oxford (1907–10) — after rigorous examinations in Greek, Latin and mathematics. Upon arriving at Oxford, Locke experience extreme racism. From 1910 to 1911, Locke began studying at the University of Berlin, as a graduate student. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard in 1918. He started writing about racism, African colonialism and the arts while studying in Europe. In 1912, Locke returned to the United States and joined the faculty of Howard University. He would later become chairman of its philosophy department.
Locke stimulated and guided artistic activities and promoted the recognition and respect of Blacks by the total American community. Throughout his life, Locke promoted African-American artists, writers and musicians. Having studied African culture, he encouraged African-American artists to look to Africa as well as African American history and subjects for identity and inspiration. Locke has been called one of the most important thinkers of his day. His best-remembered accomplishments come from his scholarship on literature and art.
In March 1925, Locke was the guest editor and a writer of the periodical Survey Graphic titled “Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro,” a specially on Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance. The magazine helped educate white reads about Harlem’s flourishing arts scene. This special issue included an introductory essay by Alain Locke, with additional essays by other progressive African American leaders. In 1923, Locke was contributing essays on a range of subjects to the journal of the National Urban League. These gained him even wider prominence and in 1925, he edited the March issue of the Survey Graphic, a national sociology magazine. This special issue was devoted entirely to race, and Locke turned it into a showpiece for the gifted young Black writers gathering in Harlem. The issue was an outstanding success.
Locke was dismissed for three years from Howard University in the mid-1920s after advocating for pay equity between White and Black professors. He also disagreed with the university over its path—he lobbied that Black education had a responsibility to develop its own interests and aims. It was during this hiatus from teaching that Locke moved to New York. He authored his most famous work, “The New Negro: An Interpretation“, published in 1925 and it quickly became a classic, which brought him national recognition. “The New Negro: An Interpretation of Negro Life“, was an anthology of poems, essays, drawings, musical pieces, stories, and music by Black artists.
Locke expanded it into a book and included poetry, fiction, essays, and artwork. The book was widely interpreted as a resounding rebuttal to the argument that Blacks were not capable of great literature and art. In “The New Negro”, Locke examined the famous Harlem Renaissance for the general reading public. It also became a platform where he attacked the legacy of European supremacy by pointing out the great achievements of Africans. The publication of the book and its acclaim would place Locke at the forefront of “The New Negro Movement.” Locke was a distinguished scholar and educator and during his lifetime an important philosopher of race and culture. Principal among his contributions in these areas was the development of the notion of “ethnic race”, Locke’s conception of race as primarily a matter of social and cultural, rather than biological, heredity.
A passionate collector of African art and champion of Black theater (Plays of Negro Life, published in 1927), Locke became one of the world’s foremost scholars in African studies. In 1954, Howard University started its African Studies Program. It was not a new concept. Thirty years earlier Locke suggested the program to the Howard University administration. As a patron of the arts, Locke’s legacy on African American history and culture would impact many generations to come. He would become known as the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance“. Alain Locke made a career of thinking about Black culture in innovative ways. In the process, he became one of the most important Black intellectual leaders of the 20th century.
His philosophical theories focused on race relations, cultural relativism, and pluralism, interests he extended to his promotion of writers and artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Locke had his finger directly on that pulse, promoting, influencing, and sparring with such figures as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston , Richmond Barthe’, William Grant Still, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois. He lived a controversial life because his ideas of values, race, and culture often went against popular ideas. He is frequently included in listings of influential African Americans. On March 19, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed: “We’re going to let our children know that the only philosophers that lived were not Plato and Aristotle, but W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke came through the universe.“