The New Negro by Alain LeRoy Locke — Read

Less than four months after the spectacular Harlem issue of the Survey Graphic appeared, Locke, its guest editor, was out of a job. On June 16, 1925, Emmett Scott, Secretary-Treasurer of Howard University's Board of Trustees, wrote to Locke: "Voted: That, Alain LeRoy Locke, Professor of Philosophy, be not reemployed for the school year 1925–26." By way of explanation, Scott continued: "After very full discussion of the matter, in all its phases, your place, among others, it was decided, could be vacated and the work of the University not unduly suffer." That might seem surprising, for during the winter quarter, 1925, Locke had carried a heavy load of teaching, including Philosophy 2 Ethics, Philosophy 126 Modern Philosophy: Renaissance to the Present, Philosophy 129 Race Contacts (for graduate students), and Philosophy 130 Aesthetics and Literary Criticism. Of course, on another level, Scott's comment reflected the low value placed on the teaching of philosophy, rather than religion, at Negro colleges and universities in the mid-1920s. As if to ensure that Locke did not feel unappreciated, Scott concluded: "I am directed to add an expression of the Executive Committee's appreciation on the behalf of the Board of Trustees of the services you have rendered since you have been connected with the University."2

How could the premier Negro institution of higher education in the United States fire its most-educated faculty member, especially after he had made history, again, by editing arguably the most important statement of Negro efficacy in 1925? The answer, while complex, came down to this: the New Negro was not a welcome attitude in all quarters of Negro America, especially among administrators of institutional Negro America who viewed the New Negro and its criticality of racial hegemony as a nuisance to be dismissed or, if that did not suffice, to be crushed.