The New Negro by Alain LeRoy Locke — Read

Egypt, it must be admitted, was more of a fantasy-and a rationale for funding-than an eagerly anticipated destination that summer of 1923. Locke's summer was spent mostly in Europe. Indeed, when he left America, it was not certain he would get to Egypt. As of June 28, Helen Irvin, who was looking after his apartment at 1326 R Street, wrote him, "I do hope you will find it possible and profitable to make the trip to Egypt."1 Despite his various appeals, Locke did not have enough money to finance the trip to Egypt when he left America in June. Even as late as October, Roscoe Conkling Bruce and Arthur Schomburg still solicited funds for Locke, although by then they were having some success. The problem was, they did not know where he was! Bruce and Schomburg were "a bit surprised" not to have heard from Locke "in regard to your progress. We are raising a fund for the purposes of helping out with expenses, but since you do not write we cannot send it, til we know where you are physically and tuntankahmerizally." Of course, he was not responding because he was hold up in Europe with Rudolph rather than in Egypt with Tutankhamun. His friends' continuing efforts to finance that Egypt trip resulted in some humorous accidents. "Easeley Hatford, on the yard sent in by mistake her contribution two pounds to your beloved friend [Carter G.] Woodson, and got in the air and he is full of malicious envy. Schomburg is having a photostat copy made, to send you as soon as he can locate you. Another contrary member of the wealthiest negro in central america known as the Cocoa King has sent a substantive contribution and Schom and I have done our part as others will do there[']s." The rub was that Locke had to be more forthcoming. "Now keep us posted of your whereabouts prospects, and doings as we are sincerely interested as you must know and want your mission to be a successful one. Woodson says you ‘must have a look in at the tomb, and that you may get to Egypt-that you are having a good time in Europe' malicious envy, etc."2 It was as much an open secret that he was more interested in going to Europe than to Egypt as that he was a homosexual.

Woodson was "envious," because, having resigned his deanship at Howard University to launch the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, he could not afford such a trip given that the Association barely made enough to keep its doors open. Locke, by contrast, had a paying university professorship and was taking money out of the purses of Black nationalists-even Central American nationalists like the Cocoa King-to travel as Woodson never could. But the caricature was unfair: Locke did want to go to Egypt, but his interest in Africa was not of a historical antiquarian kind that Woodson-and to a lesser extent, Leo Hansberry-wanted to do in Africa. For Locke, study of Africa, and especially Egypt, was not focused mainly on compiling its history, but to use that history to create a pathway for Africans and "Afro-Americans" as pivotal players in the emerging present. Egypt was part of Locke's continuing sociological study of race contacts and how non-Western culture serves as a critique of modern race creeds that asserted White supremacy. Studying Europe was as important to that critical intervention as peeking in at King Tut's tomb, though, as a mild Afrocentrist, Locke knew promoting his trip as representing the race at King Tut's tomb would get race men and women to contribute to it. And there was an emotional component to Egypt for Locke as well-it functioned as a kind of imagined racial Mother-if he could get to her.