Alain Locke Biography Update, Education, Death, Age, Honours, Works

Alain LeRoy Locke (September 13, 1885 – June 9, 1954) was an American writer, philosopher, and educator. In 1907, he became the first African American Rhodes Scholar. Locke is often called the philosophical architect and “Dean” of the Harlem Renaissance. He is regularly listed among influential African Americans. On March 19, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “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.”

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Age

Arthur Leroy Locke was born on September 13, 1885, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Biography and Education

Arthur Leroy Locke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 13, 1885, to Pliny Ishmael Locke and Mary Hawkins Locke. Both parents came from well-known families of free Black Americans. As a child, he was called “Roy” and was their only child. His father was among the first Black employees at the U.S. Postal Service, and his grandfather taught at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia. His mother, Mary, worked as a teacher and encouraged his love for education and literature. Mary’s grandfather, Charles Shorter, served as a soldier and was recognized as a hero in the War of 1812.

When he was 16, Locke decided to go by the name “Alain.” In 1902, he graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia, finishing second in his class. He also attended the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy.

In 1907, Locke graduated from Harvard University with degrees in English and philosophy. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and won the Bowdoin Prize. That same year, he became the first African American chosen as a Rhodes Scholar to study at the University of Oxford. No other African American was selected until 1963, when John Edgar Wideman and John Stanley Sanders were chosen. At that time, Rhodes selectors did not meet candidates in person, but some likely knew Locke was African American.

When he arrived at Oxford, several colleges refused to admit him, and some American Rhodes Scholars from the South would not live or attend events with him. Locke was eventually admitted to Hertford College, where he studied literature, philosophy, Greek, and Latin from 1907 to 1910. He joined the Oxford Cosmopolitan Club with his friend Pixley ka Isaka Seme and contributed to its first publication.

In 1910, he attended the University of Berlin, where he studied philosophy.

Sexual orientation

Locke was homosexual and may have encouraged and supported other gay African Americans involved in the Harlem Renaissance. Because of discriminatory laws at the time, he was not completely open about his orientation. He described it as the “vulnerable/invulnerable Achilles heel of homosexuality,” seeing it as both a risk and a source of strength.

Death

After retiring from Howard University in 1953, Locke moved to New York City. He suffered from heart disease and, after being ill for six weeks, died at Mount Sinai Hospital on June 9, 1954. During his illness, his friend and protégée Margaret Just Butcher cared for him.

Margaret Just Butcher used Locke’s notes from his unfinished work to write The Negro in American Culture, published in 1956.

Influence and honors

• At Howard University, the main building for the College of Arts and Sciences is named “Alain Locke Hall” in his honor. His personal and literary papers are kept in the manuscript department at the university’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Centre.
• A historical plaque marks Locke’s former home on R Street NW in the Logan Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
• In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Locke among his 100 Greatest African Americans.[33] Similarly, Columbus Salley’s book The Black 100 included Locke, ranking him 36th among the most influential African Americans.
• In 2019, Jeffrey Stewart won a Pulitzer Prize in Biography for The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke.
• In 2020, Rhodes Scholar and attorney Dr. Ann Olivarius wrote a guest column in The Financial Times suggesting that statues of Locke and Zambian civil-rights activist Lucy Banda-Sichone replace the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford University.
• Schools named after Locke include:
• Alain L. Locke Elementary School PS 208 in South Harlem
• The Locke High School in Los Angeles, California
• The Alain Locke Public School, an elementary school in West Philadelphia
• Alain Locke Charter Academy in Chicago. Illinois
• Alain Locke Elementary School in Gary, Indiana

Major works

• First edition of The New Negro (1925)
• In addition to the books listed below, Locke edited the “Bronze Booklet” series, a set of eight volumes published in the 1930s by Associates in Negro Folk Education. He regularly published reviews of poetry and literature by African Americans in journals such as Opportunity and Phylon. His works include:
• The New Negro: An Interpretation. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925.
• Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro. Survey Graphic 6.6 (March 1, 1925).
• When Peoples Meet: A Study of Race and Culture Contacts. Alain Locke and Bernhard J. Stern (eds). New York: Committee on Workshops, Progressive Education Association, 1942.
• The Philosophy of Alain Locke: Harlem Renaissance and Beyond. Edited by Leonard Harris. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989.
• Race Contacts and Interracial Relations: Lectures of the Theory and Practice of Race. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1916. Reprinted, edited by Jeffery C. Stewart. Washington: Howard University Press, 1992.
• Negro Art Past and Present. Washington: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936 (Bronze Booklet No. 3).
• The Negro and His Music. Washington: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936 (Bronze Booklet No. 2).
• “The Negro in the Three Americas”. Journal of Negro Education 14 (Winter 1944): 7–18.
• “Negro Spirituals”. Freedom: A Concert in Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (1940). Compact disc. New York: Bridge, 2002. Audio (1:14).

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• “Spirituals” (1940). The Critical Temper of Alain Locke: A Selection of His Essays on Art and Culture. Edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart. New York and London: Garland, 1983, pp. 123–26.
• The New Negro: An Interpretation. New York: Arno Press, 1925.
• Four Negro Poets. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1927.
• Plays of Negro Life: a Source-Book of Native American Drama. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927.
• A Decade of Negro Self-Expression. Charlottesville, Virginia, 1928.
• The Negro in America. Chicago: American Library Association, 1933.
• Negro Art – Past and Present. Washington, D.C.: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936.
• The Negro and His Music. Washington, D.C.: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936; also New York: Kennikat Press, 1936.
• The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art. Washington, D.C.: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1940; also New York: Hacker Art Books, 1940.
• “A Collection of Congo Art”. Arts 2 (February 1927): 60–70.
• “Harlem: Dark Weather-vane”. Survey Graphic 25 (August 1936): 457–462, 493–495.
• “The Negro and the American Stage”. Theatre Arts Monthly 10 (February 1926): 112–120.
• “The Negro in Art”. Christian Education 13 (November 1931): 210–220.
• “Negro Speaks for Himself”. The Survey 52 (April 15, 1924): 71–72.
• “The Negro’s Contribution to American Art and Literature”. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 140 (November 1928): 234–247.
• “The Negro’s Contribution to American Culture”. Journal of Negro Education 8 (July 1939): 521–529.
• “A Note on African Art”. Opportunity 2 (May 1924): 134–138.
• “Our Little Renaissance”. Ebony and Topaz, edited by Charles S. Johnson. New York: National Urban League, 1927.
• “Steps Towards the Negro Theatre”. Crisis 25 (December 1922): 66–68.
• The Problem of Classification in the Theory of Value: or an Outline of a Genetic System of Values. PhD dissertation: Harvard, 1917.
• “Locke, Alain”. Twentieth Century Authors. Edited by Stanley Kunitz and Howard Haycroft. New York: 1942, p. 837.
• “The Negro Group”. Group Relations and Group Antagonisms. Edited by Robert M. MacIver. New York: Institute for Religious Studies, 1943.
• World View on Race and Democracy: A Study Guide in Human Group Relations. Chicago: American Library Association, 1943.
• Le Rôle du nègre dans la culture des Amériques. Port-au-Prince: Haiti Imprimerie de l’état, 1943.
• “Values and Imperatives”. In Sidney Hook and Horace M. Kallen (eds), American Philosophy, Today and Tomorrow. New York: Lee Furman, 1935, pp. 312–33. Reprinted: Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1968; Harris, The Philosophy of Alain Locke, 31–50.
• “Pluralism and Ideological Peace”. In Milton R. Konvitz and Sidney Hook (eds), Freedom and Experience: Essays Presented to Horace M. Kallen. Ithaca: New School for Research and Cornell University Press, 1947, pp. 63–69.
• “Cultural Relativism and Ideological Peace”. In Lyman Bryson, Louis Finfelstein, and R. M. MacIver (eds), Approaches to World Peace. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944, pp. 609–618. Reprinted in The Philosophy of Alain Locke, 67–78.
• “Pluralism and Intellectual Democracy”. Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, Second Symposium. New York: Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, 1942, pp. 196–212. Reprinted in The Philosophy of Alain Locke, 51–66.
• “The Unfinished Business of Democracy”. Survey Graphic 31 (November 1942): 455–61.
• “Democracy Faces a World Order”. Harvard Educational Review 12.2 (March 1942): 121–28.
• “The Moral Imperatives for World Order”. Summary of Proceedings, Institute of International Relations, Mills College, Oakland, CA, June 18–28, 1944, 19–20. Reprinted in The Philosophy of Alain Locke, 143, 151–152.
• “Major Prophet of Democracy”. Review of Race and Democratic Society by Franz Boas. Journal of Negro Education 15.2 (Spring 1946): 191–92.
• “Ballad for Democracy”. Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life 18:8 (August 1940): 228–29.
• Three Corollaries of Cultural Relativism. Proceedings of the Second Conference on the Scientific and the Democratic Faith. New York, 1941.
• “Reason and Race”. Phylon 8:1 (1947): 17–27. Reprinted in Jeffrey C. Stewart, ed. The Critical Temper of Alain Locke: A Selection of His Essays on Art and Culture. New York and London: Garland, 1983, pp. 319–27.
• “Values That Matter”. Review of The Realms of Value, by Ralph Barton Perry. Key Reporter 19.3 (1954): 4.
• “Is There a Basis for Spiritual Unity in the World Today?” Town Meeting: Bulletin of America’s Town Meeting on the Air 8.5 (June 1, 1942): 3–12.
• “Unity through Diversity: A Bahá’í Principle”. The Baháʼí World: A Biennial International Record, Vol. IV, 1930–1932. Wilmette: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1989 [1933]. Reprinted in Locke 1989, 133–138. Note: Leonard Harris’s reference (Locke 1989, 133 n.) should be amended to read, Volume IV, 1930–1932 (not “V, 1932–1934”).
• “Lessons in World Crisis”. The Baháʼí World: A Biennial International Record, Vol. IX, 1940–1944. Wilmette: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1945. Reprint, Wilmette: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1980 [1945].
• “The Orientation of Hope”. The Baháʼí World: A Biennial International Record, Vol. V, 1932–1934. Wilmette: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1936. Reprint in Locke 1989, 129–132. Note: Leonard Harris’s reference (Locke 1989, 129 n.) should be amended to read, “Volume V, 1932–1934” (not “Volume IV, 1930–1932”).
• “A Baháʼí Inter-Racial Conference”. The Baháʼí Magazine (Star of the West), 18.10 (January 1928): 315–16.
• “Educator and Publicist”, Star of the West 22.8 (November 1931), 254–55. Obituary of George William Cook [Baha’i], 1855–1931.
• “Minorities and the Social Mind”. Progressive Education 12 (March 1935): 141–50.
• The High Cost of Prejudice. Forum 78 (December 1927).
• The Negro Poets of the United States. Anthology of Magazine Verse 1926 and Yearbook of American Poetry. Sesquicentennial edition. Ed. William S. Braithwaite. Boston: B.J. Brimmer, 1926, pp. 143–151.
• The Critical Temper of Alain Locke: A Selection of His Essays on Art and Culture. Edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart. New York and London: Garland, 1983, pp. 43–45.
• Plays of Negro Life: A Source-Book of Native American Drama. Alain Locke and Montgomery Davis (eds). New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1927. “Decorations and Illustrations by Aaron Douglas”.
• “Impressions of Luxor”. The Howard Alumnus 2.4 (May 1924): 74–78.