The New Negro by Alain LeRoy Locke — Read

It is not clear when he began to think of applying for the Rhodes Scholarship, but in the spring of 1906, just after finishing his essay on Tennyson, Locke wrote his mother to ask her to seek out information on how one applied for the scholarships. The Rhodes was a way for a poor Black Philadelphian to acquire an education generally reserved for the elite, since the Rhodes Trust had made study abroad available to numerous American boys since beginning to select scholars from America in 1903. Set up by the last will and testament of Cecil Rhodes, the British mining capitalist who made his millions in Africa, the Rhodes Trust provided $1,500 for a young scholar from each state to spend three years of study at Oxford University. Although Cecil Rhodes had conceived of the scholarships as a way to promote Anglo-Saxon unity in the world, he had not excluded persons of color from the competition: by drawing students from the colonies and the United States to Oxford, Rhodes hoped an education at Oxford would inspire them to extend Anglo-Saxon influence in their native lands. Selection was based solely on a candidate's "literary and scholastic attainments; his fondness of and success in manly outdoor sports … his qualities of manhood, truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for the protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship; and his exhibition during school-days of moral force of character and instincts to lead and to take an interest in his schoolmates."1

By 1907, no Negro American had won the scholarship, but Rhodes officials had privately discussed the possibility. Some Rhodes officials even wondered whether the Trust should encourage such an appointment, but decided to refrain from any policy statement; they did not want to "venture into such a wasp's nest," as one official put it. As it was, selection of candidates rested with American committees formed in each state. Probably the matter would take care of itself. With the rise of segregation in the South and the intensification of racial animosity toward Blacks throughout the nation, it seemed unlikely that any committee would select a Negro Rhodes Scholar in 1907.