Decolonizing the Canon: The Life of Dr. Alain LeRoy Locke

This year marks the centennial of American writer Alain LeRoy Locke's graduation from Harvard with a PhD in philosophy. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Locke was the first Black American to receive a Rhodes Scholarship (in 1907). It seems apt that, of the thirty-two Americans recently selected by the Rhodes Trust, ten were Black – the most ever to receive the honor. Philadelphia local and Temple alum, Hazim Hardeman, was among them.

^{Dr. Alain LeRoy Locke}

Locke synthesized his extensive formal education with a grass-roots ideology of community and accessibility. Both his pragmatism and pluralism informed his relationships – reaching for a pan-African inspiration. Locke mentored other writers, including Zora Neale Hurston.

His own work centered on identity. The New Negro, a collection of his writings and illustrations, was published in 1925. Locke's pieces on the Harlem Renaissance revealed the vibrant inner lives of artists, their cultural contributions and political relevance, for audiences of all races. His ideas contrasted with those of other Black public intellectuals, including his close friend, W.E.B. Du Bois. Du Bois argued it was the responsibility of Black artists to perform racial healing and uplift. Meanwhile, Locke argued that the artist's responsibility was, first and foremost, to themself.

^{Locke's title page with illustration}

Locke's intellectual lineage and legacy signify a reappropriation of Western epistemological thought. His presence as a Black (queer) man in white academia helped puncture the veil of exclusivity and elitism that runs rampant in the scholarly world. He was the father of the Harlem Renaissance. In parallel to his lived experiences, Locke encouraged his contemporaries to strike a balance between the formation of a Black cultural consciousness and integration into white American society with the ultimate goal of unity. People of color can forge a defiant collective identity. But we will never truly be free from the atrocities of the past and their inescapable legacies. We can only seek to rise from the ashes.

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