Alain L. Locke

Alain L. Locke (1886-1954), in his famous 1925 anthology The New Negro, declared that "the pulse of the Negro world has begun to beat in Harlem." A founder of the Harlem Renaissance, Locke promoted, influenced, and sparred with such figures as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jacob Lawrence, Richmond Barth, William Grant Still, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Bunche, and John Dewey. This long-awaited first biography narrates this extraordinarily gifted philosopher, critic and writer's development.