Alain Leory Locke

Alain Leory Locke

ALAIN LEORY LOCKE
Alain Leroy Locke was born on September 13, 1885 in Pennsylvania. Alain Locke is the proud mother of Mrs. Mary Locke and the proud father of Pliny Ishmael Locke. Alain attended and graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia and was second in his class. In 1907 Mr. Locke graduated from Harvard University with degrees in English and philosophy. Alain Leroy Locke was the first African American Rhodes Scholar and also formed part of Phi Beta Kappa society.   Locke was denied admission to several oxford colleges because of his skin color but that didn’t stop his drive to be educated. He attended Hertford College, where he studied literature, philosophy, Greek, and Latin from 1907 through 1910. This man didn’t stop being educated there; he then attended the University of Berlin, where he also studied philosophy. In 1911 he attended the college de France in Paris. Later in 1916 Locke returned to Harvard to work on his doctoral dissertation, “The Problem of Classification in the Theory of Value”. In 1918 Locke received his PhD in philosophy and later returned to Howard University as the chair of the department of philosophy until 1953 when he retired. At Howard University, he became a distinguished member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. Alain Leroy Locke promoted African American artists, writers, and musicians, encouraging them to look to Africa as an inspiration for their works. Locke played a huge part in the special on Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance which helped educate white readers about the flourishing culture there. Locke is the author of many inspiring books and articles in the world today such as, “The New Negro”, “When people meet”, “Black culture and the Harlem Renaissance”, just to name a few.   I really enjoy when he quoted, “ The race issue has not only been solved but has performed a social function in society because it has blended two heterogeneous element into a homogeneity of which either one in itself would have been...