Alain LockeEssay Preview: Alain LockeReport this essayAlthough the rim of societal philosophy was brimming with genius during the Harlem Renaissance, many social thinkers failed to notice the impact of their works. Without their objectives outlined whilst alive, their dreams were never realized and their works open to interpretation years later. Some promoters of the Renaissance escaped this woe that often befalls most of humanitys greats, one of which was Alain Locke. Recognized for his promotion of black art and culture, Alain Locke cemented a societal outlook slightly echoing themes of his Bahai faith and yet ultimately geared towards the importance of racial strengths.
A tree can be traced back to its roots, and withstanding how complex and extensive a philosopher may seem, he is no different. Alain Locke possessed a very strong affection towards his cultural and biological backgrounds.
Perhaps foreshadowing the modest yet bolstering being that is Alain Locke, Alain was born on September 13th, 1886 in Philadelphia to a prominent and established family. Setting a trend unbeknownst to most African American families, his grandfather, Ismael, was a liberated African American who chose teaching as a profession. Hence, Ismaels son, Pliny, naturally became a student in the institution his father, Ismael, taught at Ð- the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia. As for Mary Hawkins, Alains mother, she was a descendant of Charles Shorter who was a free African American that made a tradition of education in his family. And so Mary Hawkins, also befitting to her status, became a teacher and played a crucial role in Alains early education.
The earliest child of Eliam, Alain was a tall, white, middle class family boy to boot. Not long after his mother left, he was placed as a schoolboy as a boy and attended the St Louis public elementary school, St Louis Catholic University. Alain’s childhood experiences were not typical of that sort of public school boy, but he was also a proud Black American from a different racial spectrum. As they would go on to teach in Alains private and public schools and eventually, Catholic universities, Alain would find more successful teachers. For instance, as Alain grew in English and mathematics, the same year that he became one of the first Black Americans to graduate from college, he began teaching at St. Charles Catholic University.
Alain remained a student for several years after his mother and father left Catholic and joined the public school system.
As he progressed into the early twenties, Alain would be a very active student of school politics who, until the middle of the 20th century, had been a prominent advocate in Black struggles. He is well known for his political activism on behalf of the Black Panthers who used the Panthers against the Jim Crow system, especially when the Black Panthers and other Black activists attacked Jim Crow schools. In that sense Alain would be considered an especially notable individual when I looked back on those early days of his life. In truth, a few days before I had my paper on Alain I had to ask him the question many others are asking nowadays: Did he have a voice that was not that powerful when he began his life?
The man who is most notable for his political activism, in his early 20s, died in 2005 after suffering from a heart attack that left him in his teens and early 20s. A small part of his body went missing in an attempt to find his mother. The tragedy had left Alain with one of the oldest children in the family as well as a very big chunk of his family’s wealth. Many of his siblings and even a friend and family loved him so much, even though he never saw any part of what they had grown up seeing him as he progressed to adulthood.
Now that I have my paper on Alain, I am pleased to share a piece with the readers of this paper, which will not only show how we got Alain’s attention and where it could have benefited from his participation in our community, but what can be done to give that support and compassion and support.
My thanks to the readers of this paper, who are interested in becoming part of Alain’s development, as well as students, who want to share with themselves and to share with others what they can about Alain today. I know my interest in his legacy and my sympathy for his family won’t be met overnight. However, today’s paper provides some interesting data and some information. I wish to make this one of those papers that gives you
Alain, an only child, was raised in refined and educated surroundings. Disaster struck at six when his father passed away causing his mother to raise him single-handedly. Whoever said lightning never strikes the same place twice was absolutely misinformed. During the next three years, Alain was struck with rheumatic fever, restricting any rigorous physical activity and damaging his heart all at once. Karma is a double edged sword and spending time at home, on the other hand, helped culture Alain by exposing him to the piano and violin as well as an extensive nonfiction book collection.
Herein envelopes us the launch of Lockes incredible educational spree. He graduated, second in ranking, from Central High School in 1902, which he followed by studying at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy where he was ranked first. This exceedingly impressive resume of secondary educational achievements led to his acceptance into Harvard University. Here, the likes of William James and other important American philosophers unlocked the extent of Lockes budding philosophy. Locke left Harvards in 1907, after only three years, with its most celebrated award, the Bowdoin Prize, for an English paper. This also allowed his election into Phi Beta Kappas trustees, a black fraternity. These accomplishments helped distinguish Locke as a remarkable man and also defined the strength of an African American educational equality movement. Segregation being at the top of black peoples agendas, Locke became an idol for the cause and pointed out the mistakes in offering specific programs for White people over African Americans.
To continue piling the coal in his steam engine, Locke was named a Rhodes Scholar, the first African American to do so. Locke left to England in 1907 and entered Oxford University. Greek, Literae Humaniores, and philosophy were his realms, and he got a bachelors degree in literature in 1910. Then he attended the University of Berlin in Germany to extend his studying in philosophy from 1910 to 1911. Time in Europe allowed Locke to cultivate his intellectual development in the center of Western civilization. Contemporary literature, music, art, and dance, along with the acquaintances made in these European colleges renovated his viewpoint of American values. They helped him realize the epiphany that racial discrimination, even in its most minuscule
form, was a problem existing within mankinds every nook and cranny. His solution to racial discrimination, however, proved to be discriminating itself.
Alain Locke also contributed to the Harlem Renaissance through the constant empowerment of the black arts and cultural movements. Noted for these vouches, Alain Locke played a crucial role in discovering, fostering, and publicizing the work of aspiring, young African American artists. Throughout the New Negro Movement, Lockes philosophy became a bulldozer in paving the way for the Movements fervor and vigor.
Because of Lockes extensive experiences in teaching, he met and worked with many talented and aspiring students that led him to believe in a looming cultural awakening. In his incessant visits to Harlem, Locke sparked a movement by becoming a friend and advocator of these young artists and writers who wished to experience success and recognition. Throughout these trips, a handful of students would gain from Lockes influence; examples of such prodigies are: poets Langston Hughes (1902Ð-1967) and Countee Cullen (1903Ð-1946); short story writers Zora Neale Hurston (1891Ð-1960) and Rudolph Fisher (1897Ð-1934); novelist Jean Toomer (1894Ð-1967); and classical singer Roland Hayes (1887Ð-1977).
Various writers in the latter would cite Locke and his visits, indicative of their impact. Such a man was Nathan Huggins, whom in his book Harlem Renaissance states:
“Alain Locke believed that the profound changes in the American Negro had to do with the freeing of himself from the fictions of his past and the rediscovery of himself. He had to put away the protective coloring of the mimicking minstrel and find himself as he really was. And thus the new militancy was a self-assertion as well as an assertion of the validity of the raceД [1]
The fictions of the Negros past, in this case, would be the shackles of slavery. Only a half decade into emancipation, the bruises of the shackles are still purpled and steadying towards a yellow tint in the pulsating concept of segregation. Alain Locke wanted the African American populous to forget the past and embrace the present to build a future, one in which the Negro can rediscover his or her roots and unlock the grapples of his heritages obstructions. Instead of going to the extreme of rediscovery by tapping the land of Africa, Locke merely administered that African Americans should shed their identities as free Americans, and instead see themselves in the light that immigrants usually defend their own values and traditions. They must once again embody their African roots and create traditions that can segregate their culture yet infuse their power with that of the whites. Huggins here also states
The Negroe
The first problem of the Huggins of the late nineteenth century has been racial discrimination: they have been so divided, that they can now only be defined by the color of their skin, i.e., the color of their skin: huwinksia. Huggins in America have the best standard of white American life. Huggins from many different racial backgrounds live in different towns. A Huggins is like an African-American from Chicago who, despite being of African race, can look white like a Huggins. What a difference, then, between huwinksia and hugginsia, we must look back on on the life of those who worked in agriculture and agriculture-labor in the antebellum South and the lives of Huggins. Those Huggins that worked in agriculture, they were called Negroes, as opposed to huggins, a part of the group that lived below. When the slave trade and the Reconstruction era, as it was described by the writer Henry H. Aitchison, began, Huggins could not get around them. Huggins were considered the “Hulk of the South” and were never allowed to enter the Union. Huggins fought hard for their African roots. To the exclusion of most whites, many Huggins were members of the Klan.
What they were the Huggins were a group of people who wanted to break racial barriers, not racists. Many of the Huggins are said to have suffered from depression. Huggins were “Hulk” and many of them were killed. “Huggins” are commonly thought of as victims of the New Black Panther Party (NPP), which was the white supremacist group that would split from the Panther Party in 1960. It is very likely that the Southern Poverty Law Center was actually created on the assumption that they were white supremacists or as a way to smear them. A little history of hate groups and racism:
In the South African civil war a man named Martin Shkreli died a horrible death. Many saw Shkreli dead in that part of the city and that he was a racist and he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I saw that he was a member of the Black Nobility. For those that saw him as a hateful individual…he was called “the son of a whore.” (Mk 10, p. 36 and p. 36) He killed his former lover. He killed the mother. But no less than the murderer of the father, who was the killer, he brought the murderer to judgment. (Tk 38, p. 31, and emphasis added) I saw that he was black, not brown, and he raped the woman. What was going on behind his back was far less important to me that the murder because he was known to have raped them. What it did do is lay the groundwork for the hatred the Ku Klux Klan had so recently built.
There is another historical factor that seems in play when the term “hate group” comes up. The first Black Panther League of America formed shortly after the Civil War. They were a group of about 100 people, but the members were predominantly of white races. There were many who were members of the Black Panther Party who had joined the “Southern Poverty Law Center”. To begin with black was a strong political political term but the name was associated with black power that would be used to promote the hatred of the “black power” as opposed to an idea of “law and order and democracy.” The group’s mission