ABSTRACT
Alain Locke was born in Philadelphia and educated at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, Harvard and Oxford Universities, and the University of Berlin. He was selected as the first Negro Rhodes Scholar and studied in England on this fellowship from 1907 to 1910. For most of his life he taught philosophy at Howard University, where he was chairman of that department. Dr. Locke edited the Bronze Booklets and was the author of numerous articles and works. As a writer and teacher, and the first Negro ever to receive his Ph.D. in philosophy, Dr. Locke was an important moulder of Negro opinion. His analyses of the dynamic factors in American life, which produced changes in the American Negro and his self-image, inevitably involved the significance of Africa in this development. The selection included in this anthology originally appeared in Opportunity, for which he also wrote the annual retrospective review of literature on the Negro. It is not only of significance in itself but also as it prompted the sensitive letter to him by Captain Harry Dean, also included in this anthology (p. 129).
