Alain Locke

From Philosopedia

Locke, Alain LeRoy (13 September 1885 - 9 June 1954)

Locke, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance and often called the person who fathered it, edited in 1924 a special edition of a magazine called Survey Graphics, which included Langston Hughes and other literary figures of the time. He then developed an anthology called The New Negro (1925), which included art by Winold Reiss and other black intellectuals.

He was born in Pennsylvania to teacher and postal clerk Pliny Ishmael Locke (1850 - 1892) and teacher Mary Hawkins Locke (1853 - 1922). Locke graduated from Philadelphia's Central High School, then attended the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, and in 1907 graduated with a B.A. from Harvard University with degrees in philosophy and English. He was the first African American Rhodes Scholar.

Unable because of his being black to be admitted to several Oxford colleges, from 1907 to 1910 he attended Hertford College, studying literature, philosophy, Greek, and Latin. In 1910 he studied philosophy at the University of Berlin and in 1911 attended the College de France in Paris.

While an assistant professor in English at Howard University, he was helped by W. E. B. DuBois and Carter Woodson to develop his philosophy.

In 1916 he returned to Harvard to work on his doctoral dissertation, The Problem of Classification in the Theory of Value, observing that the causes of opinions and social biases are not objectively true, so they are not universal. He received his Ph. D. in philosophy in 1918, then returned to Howard as chair of the philosophy department, a position he held until his retirement in 1953. In 1924, while on sabbatical he worked with the French Oriental Archaeological Society in Egypt and the Sudan.

In an interview with Norm Allen Jr., Purdue philosopher Leonard Harris detailed how Locke attended Harvard, studying under William James, Josiah Royce, and Hugo Munsterberg; how he was the first black American to become a Rhodes Scholar; how, because Locke was black, many white scholars asked, “Could it be possible for a Negro to be that intelligent?”; and how he completed his doctoral degree under Ralph Barton Perry (1917), graduating from Harvard in 1918. He was a friend of Max Otto, Horace Bernard Stern, and Leeman Bryson.

Locke was part of the pluralist movement “which maintained that (1) there was something common among all humans, (2) various cultural orientations should be respected and that people ought to be given regard for their preferences, and (3) those preferences should not be prioritized.”

In his The Philosophy of Alain Locke, Harris looks “at what was behind his promotion of and associations with George Padmore, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Sterling Brown, Jean Toomer, Aaron Douglas, Wallace Thurmond, Roland Hayes, and the other literary giants of the era.”

Locke taught philosophy at Howard University in Washington, D.C., for forty years. He is said to have used his connections to secure patronage for young, male writers deserving assistance, allegedly after they had shown their appreciation in the bedroom. Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes were so rewarded, and others in his circle of gay associates were Richard Bruce Nugent and Claude McKay. An apocryphal story has it that he graded women writers, regardless of talent, with an automatic “C,” or average, on the first day of classes. Zora Neale Hurston, whom Locke liked, described him as “a malicious, spiteful little snot.”

Locke clearly was a pragmatist with a scientific outlook, at a time when in the 1930s and 1940s, states Harris, many felt “Africans and African Americans were inferior because they were not scientific; that is to say, they were deemed inferior because they were not producers of scientific products. They were also seen as being emotional. Locke, in a way, reverses this whole process and rejects the foundation upon which these claims are made.”

In his Who’s Who entry, Locke listed himself as an Episcopalian, but Allen claims Locke was a non-religious Humanist, adding that it was common for freethinkers and rationalists and secularists to disguise their true beliefs within a community which itself was a minority.

Meanwhile, Christopher Buck in Alain Locke - Faith and Philosophy claims Locke was affiliated with the Bahá'i group.

Locke died of a heart attack, and his extensive collection of African art and all his papers were willed to Howard University.

(See entry for Gay Philosophers.)

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