New Day Jazz

Justin Desmangles

Born Alain LeRoy Locke, September 13, 1886, in Philadelphia, PA; died June 9, 1954, in New York City; son of Pliny Ishmael (a teacher and postal clerk) and Mary Hawkins Locke (a schoolteacher). Education: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, B.A. 1907; Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, England, 1907-10, B.Litt 1910; graduate study, University of Berlin, Germany, 1910-11; Harvard University, Ph.D. in philosophy 1918. Politics: Republican. Religion: Episcopalian. Memberships: Member: American Negro Academy; American Philosophical Association; Associates in Negro Folk Education; International Institute of African Languages and Culture; League of American Writers; National Order of Honor and Merit (Haiti); Society for Historical Research; corresponding member Academie des Sciences Colonailes; honorary fellow Sociedad de Estudios Afro-Cubanos.

Career

Howard University, Washington, DC, assistant professor of education, 1912-17, professor of philosophy, 1917-54; Student Army Training Camp instructor, 1918; Harvard University, Austin teaching fellow, 1916-17; French Oriental Archaeological Society, Cairo, Egypt, research sabbatical,1924-25; Fisk University, Nashville, TN, exchange professor, 1927-28; Inter-American exchange professor in Haiti, 1943; visiting professor: University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1945-46; New School of Social Research, New York City, 1947; College of the City of New York, 1948.

Awards

Rhodes Scholar, 1907-10; Honor Roll of Race Relations, 1942.

Writings

• Editor, The New Negro: An Interpretation, A. & C. Boni, 1925.
• Editor with Montgomery Gregory, Plays of Negro Life: A Source-Book of Native American Drama, Harper, 1927.
• Editor, Four Negro Poets, Simon & Schuster, 1927.
• A Decade of Negro Self-Expression, 1928.
• The Negro in America, American Library Association, 1933.
• Frederick Douglass: A Biography of Anti-Slavery, 1935.
• The Negro and His Music, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936.
• Negro Art: Past and Present, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936.
• Editor, The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1940.
• Editor with Bernhard J. Stern, When Peoples Meet: A Study in Race and Culture Contacts, Committee on Workshops, Progressive Education Association, 1942.
• Le Role du Negre dans la Culture des Ameriques, Impr. de l'Etat, 1943.

Narrative Essay

Philosophy professor Alain Locke put forth the theory of "cultural pluralism," which values the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.

The preeminent African American intellectual of his generation, Alain Locke was the leading promoter and interpreter of the artistic and cultural contributions of African Americans to American life. More than anyone else, he familiarized white Americans with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, while encouraging African American authors to set high artistic standards in their depiction of life. As a professor of philosophy, he expounded his theory of "cultural pluralism" that valued the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.

Locke was born into a prominent Philadelphia family in 1886. His grandfather, Ishmael Locke, was a free African American and teacher. The Society of Friends (Quakers) sponsored his attending Cambridge University in England for further education, after which Ishmael spent four years in Liberia establishing schools. While in Africa, he married an African American educator engaged in similar work. Returning to the United States, he became headmaster of a school in Providence, Rhode Island, and then principal of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia.

Alain's father, Pliny Locke, graduated from this institute in 1867, then taught mathematics there for two years before leaving to teach newly freed African Americans in North Carolina. In 1872, he enrolled in Howard University's law school while working as an accountant in the Freedmen's Bureau and the Freedmen's Bank and serving for a time as the private secretary for General O. O. Howard, the head of the Freedmen's Bureau. Completing law school in 1874, he returned to Philadelphia to become a clerk in the U.S. Post Office. Mary Hawkins, Alain's mother, was a descendant of Charles Shorter. A free African American, Shorter had been a soldier in the War of 1812 and helped to establish an educational tradition in his family. Mary continued this tradition by becoming a teacher.

Pliny Locke and Mary Hawkins were engaged for 16 years, not marrying until they were middle-aged. Alain, their only child, was born in 1886 and nurtured in an urbane, cultivated home environment. Six years later his father died, and his mother supported her son through teaching. Young Alain contracted rheumatic fever early in his childhood. The disease permanently damaged his heart and restricted his physical activities. In their place, he spent his time reading books and learning to play the piano and violin.

Locke attended Central High School, graduating second in the class of 1902, and then studied at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, where he moved up to first in his class. Entering Harvard University, he studied under William James and some of the other leading American philosophers on the faculty. Locke completed Harvard's four-year program in three, graduating magna cum laude in 1907, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and winning the school's most prestigious award, the Bowdoin Prize, for an essay in English.

It was a remarkable achievement for anyone, not to mention an African American during this highly segregated era. While many white American scholars were seeking to prove the intellectual inferiority of African Americans to justify racial segregation, Locke became a symbol of achievement and a powerful argument for offering African Americans equal opportunity at white educational institutions.

Continuing his intellectual accomplishments, Locke was named a Rhodes Scholar, the first African American chosen for this distinguished award, and sailed to England in 1907 to attend Oxford University. He studied philosophy, Greek, and Literae Humaniores, receiving a bachelor of literature degree in 1910. From Oxford he moved to Germany for advanced work in philosophy at the University of Berlin from 1910 to 1911.

Europe at that time was the acknowledged center of Western civilization, and Locke's years there proved vital to his intellectual development. His exposure to modern literature, music, art, and dance, along with his meeting many Africans and other nonwhites from around the world, created new perspectives for viewing American society and culture. Racial discrimination, he realized, was a global problem.

Genre

Jazz

Missed the Show?

MP3 320kbps, broadband