Books By Alain Locke, Mint Editions - Author

Alain Locke (1885-1954) was an African American philosopher, scholar, educator, and patron of the arts. Born in Philadelphia, Locke was raised the only child of Pliny Ishmael and Mary Locke. His father was the first black employee of the United States Postal Service, and his mother was a teacher. He excelled at Central High School before enrolling at Harvard University in 1907, where he was made a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, was awarded the Bowdoin prize, and became the first African American recipient of the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. He attended Hertford College at Oxford, overcoming several rejections from other schools attached to the university to study literature, philosophy, Greek, and Latin. After four years as an assistant professor at Howard University, Locke returned to Harvard to complete his doctoral dissertation on the nature of social values. Back at Howard, he worked as the chair of the philosophy department and advocated for equal pay for black and white faculty, which ultimate