Alain Locke 1885–1954 A LAINLEROYLOCKE—philosopher,raceleader, benefits everyone and that democracy itself is at art critic, adult educator, essayist, and antholo- stake. The essence of Locke’s philosophy of gist—was the leading African American intel- democracy is captured in the title “Cultural lectual of his day after W. E. B. Du Bois (1868– Pluralism: A New Americanism,” a public 1963). A social genius, Locke was the lecture he gave at Howard University on mastermind behind the Harlem Renaissance, November 8, 1950. In raising democracy to a that explosion in the 1920s and 1930s of “New new level of consciousness, Locke international- Negro” literature, drama, music, and art that ized the race issue, making the crucial connec- bolstered black pride and earned reciprocal tion between American race relations and white respect on a national scale never before international relations. Racial justice, he pre- achieved. The December 1925 publication of dicted, would serve as a social catalyst of world Locke’s anthology, The New Negro, was a stel- peace. Thus there are two major streams of lar event inAmerican cultural history.Avolume thought in Locke’s work—theAfricanAmerican that spoke volumes, The New Negro: An Inter- historical, cultural, and intellectual tradition, pretation was art as manifesto—a secular libera- and a cosmopolitan, global outlook intensified tion theology. For this and other reasons by the Bahá’í principles he embraced. Locke is Columbus Salley, in The Black 100 (1999), both a “race man” (cultural racialist) and a ranks Locke as the thirty-sixth most influential philosopher (cultural pluralist). How Locke African American in history. Alain LeRoy should be read depends on which of these two Locke is the Martin Luther King Jr. ofAmerican roles predominates. culture. “Race men” were black leaders who came of age during the era of scientific racism. They embraced nineteenth-century middle-class “RACE MAN”AND “FATHER OF MULTICUL- TURALISM” values and held a deep faith in the meliorative powers of liberalism. Cultural pluralists com- Locke was a “prophet of democracy,” whose pensated for the deficiencies of liberalism by grand (though not systematic) theory of democ- promoting social justice and community; they racysequencedlocal,moral,political,economic, accorded respect to culturally diverse groups and cultural stages of democracy as they arced and valued their diversity. A Harlem Renais- through history, with racial, social, spiritual, sance immortal, Locke is no less historic in his and world democracy completing the trajectory. role as a cultural pluralist. Locke has been Adjunct notions of natural, practical, progres- called “the father of multiculturalism”—as sive, creative, intellectual, equalitarian democ- cultural pluralism is now known—although his racy crystallized the paradigm. Seeing America Harvard colleague Horace Kallen was the one as “a unique social experiment,” Locke’s larger who actually coined the term “cultural plural- goal was to “Americanize Americans,” with the ism” in conversations with Locke that took simple yet profound message that equality place at Oxford University in 1907 and 1908. 195 196 / AMERICAN WRITERS How should Locke be thought of as a writer? solidarity and fostered the group consciousness Beyond his historic roles as critic, editor, and among African Americans that proved a neces- cultural ambassador, to what extent does he leap sary precondition of the civil rights movement. from history onto the printed page and demand Haifa is the world center of the Bahá’í Faith, to be read? The answers depend largely on how the religion to which Locke converted in 1918, much of Locke can be read. While Locke did the same year he received his doctorate from publish widely, a great deal of his work remains Harvard. Until recently Locke’s religion has inmanuscriptform,includinglectures,speeches, been the least understood aspect of his life. Dur- and unfinished essays that are often the clearest ing the Jim Crow era, at a time when black exposition of what he really thought. Two edi- people saw little possibility of interracial tions of his writings relied heavily on archival harmony, this new religious movement offered research and the subsequent editing of texts for hope through its “race amity” efforts, which publication: Leonard Harris’ The Philosophy of Locke was instrumental in organizing. These Alain Locke: Harlem Renaissance and Beyond three spheres of activity—the academy, the art (1989) and Jeffrey C. Stewart’s edition of world, and spiritual society—converge to create Locke’s Race Contacts and Interracial Rela- a composite picture of Locke as an integration- tions: Lectures on the Theory and Practice of ist whose model was not assimilation but rather Race (1992). A third collection, The Critical “unity through diversity.” Temper of Alain Locke: A Selection of His Es- For reasons that have eluded historians, Locke says on Art and Culture (1983), also edited by always stated that he was born in 1886, but he Jeffrey Stewart, reprints a number of reviews was really born a year earlier—on September and essays. These posthumous publications and 13, 1885, in Philadelphia. Although his birth reprints have effectively brought Locke’s work name was Arthur his parents may actually have back to influential life. How Locke is now be- named him Alan. At the age of sixteen Locke ing read is becoming as important as how Locke adopted the French spelling (“Alain,” close to was read. the American pronunciation of “Allen”), and added the middle name LeRoy (probably be- LIFEAND CAREER cause he was called Roy as a child). He was the only son of Pliny Locke and Mary (Hawkins) Harvard, Harlem, Haifa—place names that Locke, who had been engaged for sixteen years represent Locke’s special involvement in before they married. A child of Northern philosophy, art, and religion—are keys to Reconstruction (which focused on the post- understanding his life and thought. Harvard Civil War economic revolution, while Southern prepared Locke for the distinction of becoming Reconstruction dealt more with laws pertaining in 1907 the first black Rhodes Scholar, and in to blacks), the boy was given an enlightened 1918 it awarded him a Ph.D. in philosophy (for upbringing and a private education. As a child his dissertation, Problems of Classification in of privilege Locke led a somewhat sheltered the Theory of Value, submitted on September 1, life. He was raised as an Episcopalian, and dur- 1917), which eventually secured his position as ing his youth he became enamored with classi- chair of the Department of Philosophy at cal Greek philosophy. Howard University from 1927 until his retire- Locke was predisposed to music and reading ment in 1953. Harlem was the mecca of the owing to his physical condition. In infancy he Harlem Renaissance, whereby Locke, as a was stricken with rheumatic fever, which spokesman for his race, revitalized racial permanently damaged his heart. Locke dealt ALAIN LOCKE / 197 with his “rheumatic heart” by seeking, as philosophy—taught by George Santayana—in Michael R. Winston says, “compensatory which Locke had enrolled. Thus began a satisfactions” in books, piano, and violin. Only lifetime friendship. Kallen recorded some valu- six years old when his father died, Locke was able personal observations about Locke as a sent by his mother to one of the Ethical Culture young man. First, Locke was “very sensitive, schools—a pioneer experimental program of very easily hurt.” As Kallen relates in “Alain Froebelian pedagogy, a philosophy of childhood Locke and Cultural Pluralism,” Locke would education named after Friedrich Froebel (1782– strenuously insist that we are all human beings, 1852), who opened the first kindergarten. By that “the Negro is … an American fact,” and the time he enrolled in Central High School in that color should make no difference in the 1898, Locke was already an accomplished “inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit pianist and violinist. In 1902 he began studies of happiness.” This sentiment is corroborated atthePhiladelphiaSchoolofPedagogy,graduat- by a letter he wrote to his mother shortly after ing second in his class in 1904. That year Locke receiving his Rhodes scholarship; in it he entered Harvard College with honors, where he insists: “I am not a race problem. I am Alain was among precious few African American LeRoy Locke.” Unfortunately color made all undergraduates. the difference in that era. The prevailing social During the “golden age of philosophy at Har- reality was that Locke’s self-image was really a vard,” Locke studied at a time when Josiah wish-image. Royce, William James, George Herbert Palmer, In 1907, on a Sheldon traveling fellowship, Hugo Münsterberg, and Ralph Barton Perry Kallen ended up at Oxford at the same time as were on the faculty. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Locke. In “Alain Locke and Cultural Pluralism” in 1907 Locke won the Bowdoin Prize—Har- KallendescribesaracialincidentoveraThanks- vard’s most prestigious academic award—for giving Day dinner hosted at the American Club an essay he wrote, “The Literary Heritage of at Oxford. Locke was not invited because of Tennyson.” He also passed a qualifying exami- “gentlemen from Dixie who could not possibly nation in Latin, Greek, and mathematics for the associate with Negroes.” Elsewhere Kallen is Rhodes scholarship, which had just been estab- more blunt: “We had a race problem because lished by the diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes in the Rhodes scholars from the South were 1902. Remarkably Locke completed his four- bastards. So they had a Thanksgiving dinner year undergraduate program at Harvard in three which I refused to attend because they refused years, graduating magna cum laude with his to have Locke.” In fact, even before they left bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Then Locke for Oxford these southern Rhodes Scholars had made history and headlines in May 1907 as “formally appealed to the Rhodes trustees to America’s first—and only, until the 1960s— overturn Locke’s award”—but to no avail. African American Rhodes scholar. While his “What got Kallen particularly upset, however,” Rhodes scholarship provided for study abroad according to Louis Menand in The Metaphysi- at Oxford, it was no guarantee of admission. cal Club (2001), “was the insult to Harvard.” In Rejected by five Oxford colleges because of his support of this, Menand cites a letter to Harvard race, Locke was finally admitted to Hertford English professor Barrett Wendell, in which College, where he studied from 1907 to 1910. Kallen speaks of overcoming his aversion to During his senior year at Harvard, Locke met blacks through his loyalty to Harvard and by Horace Kallen, a German-born Jew who was a virtue of his personal respect for Locke. After graduate teaching assistant in a course on Greek having invited Locke to tea in lieu of the 198 / AMERICAN WRITERS Thanksgiving dinner, Kallen writes that, “tho’ it taking a degree and spent the 1910–1911 is personally repugnant to me to eat with him academic year studying Immanuel Kant at the … Locke is a Harvard man and as such he has UniversityofBerlinandtouringEasternEurope. a definite claim on me.”The irony is that Kallen During his stay in Berlin, Locke became harbored some of the very same prejudices as conversant with the Austrian school of anthro- the southern Rhodes Scholars who shunned pology, known as philosophical anthropology, Locke, but not to the same degree. “As you under the tutelage of Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong, Christian Freiherr von Ehrenfels, Paul know, I have neither respect nor liking for his Natorp, and others. Locke much preferred race,” Kallen writes, “—but individually they Europe to America. Indeed there were moments have to be taken, each on his own merits and when Locke resolved never to return to the value, and if ever a Negro was worthy, this boy United States. But reluctantly he did return in is.” Locke was deeply wounded by the incident. 1911. And it wasn’t just the prejudice of hisAmerican In the spring of that year Locke would taste peers that disaffected him, for he was almost as firsthand the bitterness and alacrity of the ra- critical of British condescension as he was of cialized Deep South. For the first eight days of American racism. In 1909 Locke published a March Locke traveled with Booker T. Washing- critique of Oxford, particularly of its aristocratic ton through Florida, beginning in Pensacola. pretensions. Beyond this the extent of Locke’s travels is At Oxford, resuming their conversation begun unclear, but his trip probably lasted through the at Harvard, Locke asked Kallen, “What differ- summer. There were moments during that trip ence does the difference [of race] make?” “In when he feared for his life. As a direct result of arguing out those questions,” Kallen recounts, his experience with racism in the South, Locke “the phrase ‘cultural pluralism’ was born.” resolved to promote the interests of African While the term itself was thus coined by Kallen Americans—and thereby of all Americans— in his historic conversation with Locke, it was using culture as a strategy. This was another Locke who developed the concept into a full- turning point in his life.At Oxford, Locke knew blown philosophical framework for the meliora- that he had been prepared and destined to tion of African Americans. Distancing himself become a race leader. But he did not know in from Kallen’s purist and separatist conception what capacity he would lead. It was during this of it, Locke was part of the cultural pluralist trip in the South that Locke had his vision of movement that flourished between the 1920s promoting racial pride and equality through the and the 1940s. Indeed it was at Oxford that a influence of culture. Unlike politics, culture is a crucial transformation took place: Locke saw means of expressing and effectively com- himself as a cultural cosmopolitan when he municating the aspirations and genius of a entered Oxford; by the time he left he had people. resolved to be a race leader, although he did not Later, in an unpublished autobiographical know then how he would fulfill that role. While note, Locke reflected on the circumstances that at Oxford, Locke founded the African Union led to this momentous decision in his life and Society and served as its secretary, thereby career: greatly broadening his international contacts in Africa and the Caribbean, which proved valu- Returninghomein1911,Ispentsixmonthstravel- able in later life. ling in the South,—my first close-range view of So acutely did the Thanksgiving Day incident the race problem, and there acquired my life-long traumatize Locke that he left Oxford without avocational interest in encouraging and interpret- ALAIN LOCKE / 199 ing the artistic and cultural expression of Negro Locke synthesized the Austrian school of value life, for I became deeply convinced of its efficacy theory (Franz Brentano and Alexius Meinong) as an internal instrument of group integration and with American pragmatism (George Santayana, morale and as an external weapon of recognition William James, and Josiah Royce), along with and prestige. the anthropology of Franz Boas and Kant’s On September 3, 1912, with the help of theories of aesthetic judgment. Booker T. Washington, Locke joined the faculty The essence of Locke’s philosophy of value of the Teachers College at Howard University. is captured in the first sentence of his 1935 es- There Locke taught literature, English, educa- say “Values and Imperatives,” which recapitu- tion, and ethics—and later, ethics and logic— lates his dissertation: “All philosophies, it seems although he did not have an opportunity to teach to me, are in ultimate derivation philosophies of a course on philosophy until 1915. In the spring life and not of abstract, disembodied ‘objective’ of 1915 Locke proposed a course on the scien- tific study of race and race relations. His reality; products of time, place and situation, rationale was that “a study of race contacts is and thus systems of timed history rather than the only scientific basis for the comprehension timeless eternity.” In anchoring philosophy in of race relations.” But the white ministers on social reality, Locke studied the determinative Howard University’s Board of Trustees rejected role of values in the human experience, and his petition. They opposed him because they developed a typology of values. In his disserta- felt that “controversial” subjects such as race tion Locke expresses his “psychology of value- had no place at a school whose mission was to types” in one cognitive breath: “We have educate young, black professionals. However, therefore taken values classed, rather roughly the Howard chapter of the National Association and tentatively, as Hedonic, Economic, Aes- for the Advancement of Colored People thetic, Ethical and Moral, Religious, and Logi- (NAACP) and the Social Science Club spon- cal, aiming to discover in terms of the generic sored a two-year extension course of public distinctions of a value-psychology their type- lectures(1915–1916),whichLockecalled“Race unity, character, and specific differentiae with Contacts and Inter-Racial Relations: A Study in respect to other types.” Later, in “Values and the Theory and Practice of Race.” (See below Imperatives,” Locke reduces his taxonomy to for an account of these lectures.) four types of values: Religious; Ethical/Moral; Aesthetic/Artistic; and Logical Truth/Scientific In the 1916–1917 academic year Locke took Truth. a sabbatical from Howard University to become Austin Teaching Fellow at Harvard. In that brief When awarded his Ph.D. in philosophy from span of time, Locke wrote the two hundred Harvard in 1918, Locke emerged as perhaps the sixty-three pages of his dissertation, The most exquisitely educated and erudite African ProblemofClassificationintheTheoryofValue, American of his generation. The year 1918 evidently an extension of an earlier essay he marked another milestone in Locke’s life when had written at Oxford. It was the Harvard he found a “spiritual home” in the Bahá’í Faith, professor of philosophy Josiah Royce who a new world religion whose gospel was the originally inspired Locke’s interest in the unity of the human race. The recent discovery philosophy of value. Of all the major American of Locke’s signed “Bahá’í Historical Record” pragmatists to date, only Royce had published a card (1935), in which Locke fixes the date of book dealing with racism: Race Questions, his conversion in 1918, restores a “missing Provincialism, and Other American Problems dimension” of Locke’s life (as documented in (1908). In formulating his own theory of value, Buck, “Alain Locke: Bahá’í Philosopher,” and 200 / AMERICAN WRITERS more fully in Alain Locke: Faith and Phi- studiously avoided references to the Bahá’í losophy). In a letter dated June 28, 1922, writ- Faith in his professional life, Locke’s four ten shortly after the death of his mother, Locke Bahá’í World essays served as his public states: “Mother’s feeling toward the [Bahá’í] testimony of faith. cause, and the friends who exemplify it, was As previously mentioned, Locke was actively unusually receptive and cordial for one who involved in the early “race amity” initiatives had reached conservative years,—it was her sponsored by the Bahá’ís. “Race amity” was the wish that I identify myself more closely with Bahá’í term for ideal race relations (interracial it.” Locke honored her wish. unity). The Bahá’í “race amity” era lasted from The Bahá’í Faith (known then as the Bahá’í 1921–1936, followed by the “race unity” period Cause) was attractive to some African Ameri- of 1939–1947, with other socially significant cans wherever it had made significant inroads, experiments in interracial harmony (such as as was the case in Washington, D.C. Its mes- “Race Unity Day”) down to the present. The sage of world unity—particularly its gospel of Bahá’í statement, “The Vision of Race Unity,” interracial unity (then called “race amity”)— together with the video “The Power of Race was quite radical in its stark contrast to the Unity,” which was broadcast on the Black “separate but equal” American apartheid of the Entertainment Network and across the country Jim Crow era. One instance of this new reli- in 1997, has its roots in early Bahá’í race- gion’s appeal is the fact that W. E. B. Du Bois’s relations endeavors, in which Alain Locke first wife, Nina, was a member of the Bahá’í played an important role. The first four Race communityofNewYorkCity.TheBahá’íWorld Amity conventions were held in Washington, Center is located on Mt. Carmel in Haifa, Israel, D.C. (May 19–21, 1921); Springfield, Mas- and is a place of pilgrimage for Bahá’ís. As a sachusetts (December 5–6, 1921); New York Bahá’í Locke undertook two pilgrimages to the (March28–30,1924);andPhiladelphia(October Holy Land, in 1923 and again in 1934. His first 22–23, 1924). Locke participated in all but the pilgrimage was immortalized in a travel narra- second, and was involved in the planning and tive published in 1924, reprinted three times in execution of these events as well. Beginning 1926, 1928, and 1930, and endorsed by Bahá’í with the task force that organized and success- leader, Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957). fullyexecutedthefirstconvention,Lockeserved It is significant that Locke’s trips to Israel on race-amity committees from 1924 to 1932. (then called Palestine) were for the primary There are records of Locke’s having spoken purpose of visiting the Bahá’í shrines rather (albeit sporadically) at Bahá’í-sponsored events than Jerusalem, the spiritual magnet that attracts from 1921 to 1952. Locke’s last-known public most pilgrims bound for the Holy Land. The talk (“fireside”) on the Bahá’í Faith was given fact that Haifa was his principal destination at- on March 23, 1952, in Toronto, Ontario. tests the primacy of Locke’s religious identity as a Bahá’í rather than as an Episcopalian, as In 1924 Locke left for the Sudan and Egypt. he was always designated in the brief biographi- He was granted sabbatical leave to collaborate cal notices of him published during his lifetime. with the French Archaeological Society of It was not until an article, “Bahá’í Faith: Only Cairo. The highlight of his research trip was the Church in World That Does Not Discriminate,” reopening of the tomb of Tutankhamen. On his appeared in the October 1952 issue of Ebony return from Egypt, however, he found his magazine that Locke’s Bahá’í identity was ever campus in upheaval from a student strike. In publicized in the popular media. Although he June 1925 Locke was fired from Howard ALAIN LOCKE / 201 University by its white president, J. Stanley blackcultureanditsenrichmentoftheAmerican Durkee, for Locke’s support of an equitable experienceforallAmericans.Notmerelyagreat faculty pay scale and for student demands to creative outburst during the Roaring Twenties, end mandatory chapel and ROTC. Following the Harlem Renaissance was actually a highly his dismissal, since he was no longer gainfully self-conscious modern artistic movement. In an employed, Locke needed to find a patron for unpublished report on race relations, Locke support of his intellectual work. He found his stated that the New Negro Movement “deliber- benefactor in Charlotte Mason, a wealthy white ately aims at capitalizing race consciousness for woman with whom Locke faithfully corre- group inspiration and cultural development. But spondeduntilherdeathin1940.Masonfinanced it has no political or separatist motives, and is, Locke’s annual trips to Europe for thirteen years in this one respect, different from the national- and enabled Locke to begin building his invalu- isms of other suppressed minorities.” In its able collection of African art, which he later mythic and utopian sense, Harlem was the “race bequeathed to Howard University. capital” and the largest “NegroAmerican” com- That very year (1925) the Harlem Renais- munity in the world. The Harlem Renaissance, sance was born. It was conceived a year earlier consequently, presented itself toAmerica and to when Locke was asked by the editor of the the world as a microcosm or self-portraiture of Survey Graphic to produce an issue on Harlem, black culture. With its epic scope and lyric a community located in Manhattan in New depth, the movement was an effusion of art York. That special issue, Harlem, Mecca of the borne of the everydayAfricanAmerican experi- New Negro, Locke subsequently recast as an ence. The Harlem Renaissance would establish anthology, The New Negro: An Interpretation, Locke as the elder statesman of African Ameri- published in December 1925. A landmark in can art in later life, when his towering prestige black literature, it was an instant success. Locke wielded enormous authority. wrote the foreword plus four essays appearing In principle Locke was an avowed supporter in the anthology: “The New Negro,” “Negro of W. E. B. Du Bois’s idea of a cultural elite Youth Speaks,” “The Negro Spirituals,” and (the “Talented Tenth”) but differed from Du “The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts.” The New Bois in the latter’s insistence that art should Negro featured five white contributors as well, serve as propaganda. Even so, as Locke reveals making this artistic tour de force a genuinely in The New Negro, he hoped the Harlem Renais- interracial collaboration, with much support sance would provide “an emancipating vision to from white patronage (not without some strings America”andwouldadvance“anewdemocracy attached, however). in American culture.” He spoke of a “race The Harlem Renaissance—known also as the pride,” “race genius,” and the “race-gift.” This New Negro Movement, of which Locke was “race pride” was to be cultivated through both the prime organizer and spokesman— developing a distinctive culture, a hybrid of sought to advance freedom and equality for African and African American elements. In blacks through art.The term “New Negro” dates Locke’s opinion, art ought to contribute to the back to Booker T. Washington, Norman Barton improvement of life—a pragmatist aesthetic Wood, and Fannie Barrier Williams’s A New principle sometimes called “meliorism.” But the Negro for a New Century (1900). From 1925 Harlem Renaissance was more an aristocratic onward Locke engendered what was called thanademocraticapproachtoculture.Criticized “race pride” among African Americans by by some African American contemporaries, fostering a new sense of the distinctiveness of Locke himself came to regret the Harlem 202 / AMERICAN WRITERS Renaissance’s excesses of exhibitionism as well only four other major philosophical articles in a as its elitism. Its dazzling success was short- philosophy journal or anthology: “Three Corol- lived. laries of Cultural Relativism” (1941), “Plural- A little-known fact is that at the very time ism and Intellectual Democracy” (1942), “Cul- The New Negro was published Locke went on tural Relativism and Ideological Peace” (1944), an extended teaching trip in the South, giving and “Pluralism and Ideological Peace” (1947). public lectures on the Bahá’í vision of race In 1936, under the auspices of the Associates unity. Between October 1925 and sometime in in Negro Folk Education (ANFE), Locke the spring of 1926, Locke spoke in the Dunbar established the Bronze Booklets on the History, Forum of Oberlin, at Wilberforce University, in Problems, and Cultural Contributions of the Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and Negro series, written by such leading African before what the Southern Regional Teaching American scholars as Sterling A. Brown and Committee in 1926 called “the best Negro Ralph Bunche. Locke himself wrote two Bronze institutions in the Middle South and Northern Booklets: The Negro and His Music (1936, Florida,” including the Daytona Industrial Bronze Booklet No. 2) and Negro Art: Past and Institute and the Hungerford School near Present (1936, Bronze Booklet No. 3). Pub- Orlando. lished between 1936 and 1942, the nine Bronze Locke returned to Howard under its new Booklets became a standard reference for teach- black president, Mordecai Johnson, who rein- ingAfricanAmericanhistory.In1940theANFE stated him in June 1927, although Locke did issued Locke’s The Negro in Art: A Pictorial not resume teaching there until June 1928. Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro (During the 1927–1928 academic year, Locke Theme in Art, which was Locke’s best-known was an exchange professor at Fisk University.) work after The New Negro and the leading book In a letter dated May 5, 1927, Du Bois had writ- in its field. In 1942 Locke coedited (with Bern- ten to Howard administrator Jesse Moorland to hard J. Stern) When Peoples Meet: A Study of lobby for Locke’s reinstatement. Du Bois states: Race and Culture. This anthology was interna- “Mr. Locke is by long odds the best trained tional in scope, promoting interracial and ethnic man among the younger American Negroes.” contacts through intercultural exchange. In Locke was subsequently promoted to chair of November 1942 Locke served as guest editor the philosophy department. He is credited with for a special edition of the Survey Graphic, an having first introduced the study of anthropol- issue entitled “Color: The Unfinished Business ogy, along with philosophy and aesthetics, into of Democracy.” the curriculum at Howard. A pioneer in the In1943LockewasonleaveasInter-American Negro theater movement, Locke coedited the Exchange Professor to Haiti under the joint first African American drama anthology, Plays auspices of the American Committee for Inter- of Negro Life: A Source-Book of Native Ameri- AmericanArtistic and Intellectual Relations and can Drama (1927), which consisted of twenty the Haitian Ministry of Education. Toward the one-act plays and dramatic sketches—ten by end of his stay there, Haitian President Lescot white playwrights (including Eugene O’Neill) personally decorated Locke with the National and ten by black dramatists. Order of Honor and Merit, grade of Comman- Strange to say, Locke did not publish a formal deur. There Locke wrote Le rôle du Ne`gre dans philosophical essay until he was fifty, when la culture des Amériques (1943), the nucleus of “Values and Imperatives” (1935) appeared. a grand project that he believed would be his Apart from his dissertation Locke published magnum opus. That project, The Negro in ALAIN LOCKE / 203 American Culture, was completed in 1956 by University. On June 5, 1953, Locke said in his Margaret Just Butcher, daughter of Locke’s unpublished acceptance speech: close friend and Howard colleague Ernest E. Just. It is not, however, considered to be an In coming to Howard in 1912, I was fortunate, I think,inbringingaphilosophyofthemarketplace authentic work of Locke. not of the cloister. For, however much a luxury In 1944 Locke became a charter member of philosophy may be in our general American the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and culture, for a minority situation and a trained Religion, which published its annual proceed- minority leadership, it is a crucial necessity. This, because free, independent and unimposed thinking ings.When in 1945 Locke was elected president is the root source of all other emancipations. …A of the American Association for Adult Educa- minority is only safe and sound in terms of its tion, he became the first black president of a social intelligence. predominantly white institution. During the He moved to New York in July. For practi- 1945–1946 academic year Locke was a visiting cally his entire life, Locke had sought treatment professor at the University of Wisconsin, and in for his rheumatic heart. On June 9, 1954, nearly 1947 he was a visiting professor at the New a year after moving to NewYork, Locke died of School for Social Research. One of Locke’s heart failure in Mount Sinai Hospital. On June former students at Wisconsin, Beth Singer, 11 at Benta’s Chapel, Brooklyn, Locke’s memo- describes her professor as follows: “Locke was rial was presided over by Dr. Channing Tobias a quiet, extremely scholarly, and well organized with cremation following at Fresh Pond Crema- lecturer; I do not recall his speaking from tory in Little Village, Long Island. The brief notes.” After mentioning the fact that Locke notice that appeared in the Baha’i News in 1954 was a member of the Bahá’í Faith, Singer states that “quotations from the Baha’i Writings recalls that “Dr. Locke seemed somehow aloof, and Baha’i Prayers were read at Dr. Locke’s and my friends and I were pretty much in awe funeral.” of him.” Among his many other accomplishments, LOCKE’S PHILOSOPHYOF DEMOCRACY Locke served on the editorial board of the American Scholar, was the philosophy editor Before describing the three principle collections for the Key Reporter of Phi Beta Kappa, and a of Locke’s writings, it is important to explain regular contributor to various national maga- how democracy provided the real basis of zines and journals, most notably Opportunity Locke’s body of work. To this end, manuscript (1929–1940) and Phylon (1947–1953). Locke sources must be drawn on as well as actual also contributed articles on Negro culture and publications.Access to the full range of Locke’s Harlem to the Encyclopedia Britannica from writings permits one to see the breadth of his 1940 to 1954. From 1948–1952 Locke taught vision of America and the world. A survey of concurrently at the City College (now City Locke’s writings, both published and unpub- University) of New York and Howard Univer- lished, reveals his overarching interest in sity. Howard granted Locke a leave of absence democracy, and all of his writings on race are for the 1951–1952 academic year to produce referenced to it. For Locke, race relations are at The Negro in American Culture, conceived in the heart of what democracy is all about. Haiti but left unfinished. Locke retired in June Locke’s grand theory of democracy provides a 1953 as a professor emeritus with an honorary necessary framework of analysis for compre- doctorate of human letters conferred by Howard hending what his views on race relations actu- 204 / AMERICAN WRITERS ally were. His multidimensional approach to “It is a sad irony,” Alain Locke wrote, “that democracy has already been noted. The first the social institution most committed and five dimensions are historical; they appear in potentially most capable of implementing social Locke’s paradigm of social evolution. In his democracy should actually be the weakest and 1941 unpublished farewell address at Talladega most inconsistent, organized religion.” Indeed College, Locke spoke of local, moral, political, Locke takes Christianity to task for what is now economic, and cultural stages of democracy. called “self-segregation”: “Of all the segregated Locke traces the origins of democracy back bodies, the racially separate church is the sad- to Athens, where “democracy was a concept of dest and most obviously self-contradicting. The local citizenship.” By analogy he compares this separate Negro church, organized in self- “local democracy” to “college fraternities and defensive protest, is nonetheless just as anao- sororities” in which the bonds are of “like- molous [sic], though perhaps, more pardonably mindedness,” thereby excluding others: so.” This is where secularism comes in, that is, The rim of the Greek concept of democracy was “political democracy.” According to Locke: the barbarian: it was then merely the principle of fraternity within a narrow, limited circle. There The third great step in democracy came from was a dignity accorded to each member on the protestant [sic] lands and people who evolved the basis of membership in the group. It excluded ideal of political equality: (1) equality before the foreigners, slaves and women. This concept car- law; (2) political citizenship. This political ried over into the Roman empire. democracy pivoted on individualism, and the freedom of the individual in terms of what we Christianity would provide spiritual and social know as the fundamental rights of man. It found resources for the next stage in the evolution of its best expression in the historic formula of democracy. Christianity gave rise to what Locke “Liberty, equality and fraternity.” calls “moral democracy”: Here Locke acknowledges the influence of the We owe to Christianity one of the great basic ide- French Revolution. “In terms of this ideology als of democracy—the ideal of the moral equality our country’s government was founded,” Locke ofhumanbeings.TheChristianidealofdemocracy explains, and continues: was in its initial stages more democratic than it subsequently became. … But the Christian church Butforgenerationsafter[,]manyofthefundamen- was a political institution and in making compro- tals of our democracy were pious objectives, not mises often failed in bringing about real human fully expressed in practice. In the perspective of equality. democracy’s long evolution, we must regard our country’s history as a progressive process of Democracy in America began with a quest democratization, not yet fully achieved, but for “freedom of worship and the moral liberty certainly progressing importantly in terms of the of conscience.” Yet “it had not even matured to thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments the adult principle of abstract freedom of [sic], and the amendment extending the right of conscience as the religious intolerances of franchise to women. It is still imperfect. colonial settlers proved; migrating non- conformists themselves, they still could not What, then, is beyond political democracy? stand the presence of non-conformity in their In Locke’s view, “If we are going to have effec- midst.” Thus Christianity, while representing a tive democracy in America we must have the necessary advance in the notion of democracy, democratic spirit as well as the democratic tradi- was not a sufficient advance. tion, we must have more social democracy and