Alain LeRoy Locke

Alain LeRoy Locke (1885–1954) was a philosopher, writer, and educator. He graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1907 and became the first African American to be selected as a Rhodes Scholar. After receiving a PhD in philosophy at Harvard in 1918, Locke returned to Howard and formed one of the first philosophy departments at a historically black college. Locke is best known as the creator of the philosophical concept New Negro which would initiate the Harlem Renaissance (1925–1939). In 1925, he edited The New Negro: An Interpretation—an anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays on African and African American art and literature.