“The New Negro” by Alain Locke

 

The New Negro is a work that was popular during the Harlem Renaissance. Behind it is a more outspoken defense of the dignity of black people and a refusal to obey laws on racial segregation. Alain Leroy Locke was the man who popularized the term through his anthology. Locke also paid particular attention to Negro drama as the most challenging field of Black literature to be developed by authors.


As Locke thought, The New Negro represents the ending of the first phase of the new Harlem Renaissance in culture. The anthology was compiled “to document the New Negro culturally and socially,-to register the transformations” (Locke 1). Agreeing and supporting the positive attitude of the leaders of the time, Locke wrote that “the conditions that are molding a New Negro are molding a new American attitude” (Locke 10). The author considered the hope and desire for the effectiveness of the collective effort in the cooperation of the race to be the symbol of faith of his generation.

In the preface, Locke analyzed the phenomenon of the “the new negro”, its psychology, the factors that characterized its worldview, and its internal features. The author emphasized the role of this notion as a participant in the broad cultural movement that captivated American society, especially after the end of the First World War. According to Locke, The New Negro is a natural phenomenon; it is inseparable from American culture, is its equal factor. Until recently, people wrote about Negroes and their culture “from the outside”. However, it was still not clear how black people perceive themselves from the inside, that is to say, there was no self-esteem, self-perception.

The Harlem Renaissance resulted from the changes in the life of African-American society that occurred from the time of the abolition of slavery and up to the mass migration of Blacks to the North. Therefore, their participation in the First World War, industrialization and all the socio-cultural changes in the United States at the beginning of the XX century played an essential role (Grimes 43). Locke wanted to convey the thoughts and feelings that overwhelm the black population. Locke had the idea to remake “The New Negro”, and he promoted this throughout the writing. The writer had an idea of the “inner and outer negro” (Locke 10). He raised questions about how black people have been consistently overlooked and wanted to represent diverse views in the community. Locke acknowledged that African Americans had made some progress politically on land ownership and slavery.

Like other African-American political activists of the twentieth century, Locke was on the side that the established system would come to favour the black population. However, the author rejects the idea of using negative political measures that the system demanded. This approach assumed that any hopes of the community for change were overly dependent on influential people of privileged part of society and their willing. As for art and literature, the author saw an opportunity to replenish both black and white cultures their cultural interaction