Locke Alain - The new Negro: the life of Alain Locke

The New

Negro

Alain Locke by Winold Reiss. 1925. Private Collection.

The New

Negro

T HE L I F E O F

A L A I N LO C K E

J E F F R E Y C . S T E W A R T

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Jeffrey C. Stewart 2018

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stewart, Jeffrey C., 1950author.

Title: The new Negro : the life of Alain Locke / Jeffrey C. Stewart.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017026626 (print) | LCCN 2017026908 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780199723317 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190652852 (Epub) | ISBN 9780195089578

(hardcover : acid-free paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Locke, Alain, 18851954. | Locke, Alain, 18851954Political and social views. | African American philosophersBiography. | African American intellectualsBiography. | African American college teachersBiography. | Harlem Renaissance. | African American artsHistory. | African AmericansIntellectual life. | BISAC: HISTORY /

United States / 20th Century. | HISTORY / Social History. | BIOGRAPHY &

AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Composers & Musicians.

Classification: LCC E185.97.L79 (ebook) | LCC E185.97.L79 S83 2017 (print) |

DDC 191dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026626

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed by Edwards Brothers Malloy, United States of America

To John Wesley Blassingame (19402000)scholar, mentor, and friend,

who set me on this course

CO N T E N TS

xi

PART I

viii

Contents

27. 504

Contents ix

This biography of Alain Locke exists because of the inspiration of a community of scholars, mentors, and friends, including Eleanor W. Traylor, E. Curmie Price, Monifa Love Asante, Anissa Ryan Stewart, Fath Davis Ruffins, Marta Reid Stewart, Julie Thacker, Gilbert Morris, Paula Lieberman, Hugo Hopping, Prudence Cumberbatch, Lois Mailou Jones, Richard Long, Carl Faber Jr., Dr.

Phyllis Daen, Lawrence Lee Jones, Margaret Rose Vendryes, Patricia Hills, Claudia Tate, Richard Powell, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Rose Cherubin, Laurie Monahan, Renate Reiss, Ethelbert Miller, John S. Wright, Paul Coates, Kellie Jones, Joellen El Bashir, Arthur Fauset, Clifford L. Muse, Richard Edward Jenkins III, Melvin Oliver, Vincent Johnson, Harold Lewis, Doxey Wilkerson, Arthur Davis, Sterling Brown, Sabrina Vellucci, Marion Deshmukh, Wilburn Williams, William Banner, Charles Prudhomme, Linda Heywood, Shirley Moody-Turner, Jerry G.

Watts, Robin Kelly, Stephanie Batiste, Paul Ruffins, Suzanne Preston Blier, Steven Nelson, Anna Scacchi, Meaghan Alston, Roberto Strongman, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Lowery Stokes Sims, Ossie Davis, Steven Jones, Stephanie Batiste, Sass Smith, Leroy Odinga Perry, Marissa Parham, Joyce Owens, Jonathan Holloway, Nell Painter, Esme Bhan, David Musto, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Peter Fitzsimmons, Arcilla Stahl, Michelle Huneven, Bruce Johnston, Lizabeth Cohen, Jamaica Kincaid, Stanley Crouch, Samella Lewis, Stephen Goldsmith, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Helen Vendler, Gordon Teskey, Thomas Richards, Cristina Giorcelli, Azfar Hussain, Werner Sollors, Christa Clarke, Jacqueline Goggin, Bill Pencak, Maurice Natanson, Gerald Early, Celeste-Marie Bernier, Kimberly Camp, Chela Sandoval, Kathryn Coney, Alan Trachtenberg, Aida Hurtado, Isaac Julien, Camara Dia Holloway, Alvia Wardlaw, Nathan A. Scott, John Hope Franklin, ALelia Bundles, Robert Farris Thompson, Kobena Mercer, Judith Green, George Lipsitz, Claudine Michel, David Levering Lewis, Aida Hurtado, Ellen Cummings, Michael Winston, Thomas C. Battle, Donna M. Wells, David Driskell, Clifford Muse, Clarence Walker, Christopher McAuley, Cornel West, Jane Duran, Corey Blechman, Samella Lewis, Arnold Rampersad, Lydia Balian, Ashley Champayne, Charlotte xi

xii

Acknowledgments

Becker, Robert A. Hill, Francille Wilson, W. Tjark Reiss, and many others. Special thanks go to my editor, Susan Ferber, Oxford University Press, for her unstinting support, and my agent, Marie Brown, for her guidance and fealty. I also thank the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, Beinecke Library at Yale University, the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute and the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University, the Woodrow Wilson Center, George Mason University, the Getty Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Terra Foundation, and the University of California at Santa Barbara for support over many years of this project.

The New

Negro

Mary Hawkins Locke, ca. 1921. Courtesy of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.

Alain Locke rose early on April 23, 1922, a cool, clear Sunday after Easter in Washington, D.C. It was also the Sunday before his mothers sixty-seventh birthday. He woke her, helped her dress, and then served breakfast. Afterward, he read to her from the Sunday edition of the Evening Star. Headlines announced that the secret Russian-German economic pact threatened to break up the Genoa Conference, the Pan-American Conference of Women proposed a League of Nations, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Sherlock Holmes author, was to speak in Washington as part of his nationwide tour. Only the last caught her interestshe and her son shared an interest in psychic phenomena, and Sir Conans lecture on spiritualism was sure to be provocative and revealing. She dozed off when Alain launched into the details of his particular interest, the struggle between Germany and the Allies for trading rights with newly Communist Russia.1

That afternoon she was stricken, in the words of her son. He laid her down in her bed, where, at 7 p.m., she died, leaving her son of thirty-seven years alone in their home. The next day he taught his philosophy class at Howard University as usual. Only later in that day did students learn that Dr. Lockes mother had died.

Others learned of her passing from Tuesdays Evening Star, which carried the death notice, Locke. Sunday, April 23, 1922 at her residence, 1326 R Street NW, Mary Hawkins, beloved wife of the late Pliny Ishmael Locke and mother of Alain Leroy Locke. Last reception to friends Wednesday evening, from 6 to 8 oclock, at her residence.2

A student of Lockes, poet Mae Miller Sullivan, recalls that her father, Kelly Miller, a dean at Howard University, hurried her mother that Wednesday evening saying, Mama, get your things together. We mustnt be late for Dr. Lockes reception for his mother.3 The Millers and other friends of the Lockes climbed the stairs to the second-story apartment on R Street to find the deceased Mary Locke propped up on the parlor couch, as though she might lean and pour tea at any moment. She was dressed exquisitely in her fine gray dress, her hair perfectly arranged. She even had gloves on. Locke invited his guests to take tea with Mother for the last time.4 After a short visit, most left quickly. On Thursday, 5