Alain LeRoy Locke was an American writer, philosopher, and educator. Distinguished in 1907 as the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, Locke became known as the philosophical architect—the acknowledged "Dean"—of the Harlem Renaissance. He is frequently included in listings of influential African Americans. On March 19, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed: "We're going to let our children know that the only philosophers that lived were not Plato and Aristotle, but W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke came through the universe."
Alain LeRoy Locke
Alain LeRoy Locke, c.1907
Painting by Betsy Graves Reyneau
First edition cover of The New Negro (1925)
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom.
Rhodes House at the University of Oxford