Jeffrey C. Stewart, in conversation with Michele Zack, discusses and signs The New Negro

A tiny, fastidiously dressed man emerged from Black Philadelphia around the turn of the century to mentor a generation of young artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence and call them the New Negro -- the creative African Americans whose art, literature, music, and drama would inspire Black people to greatness.

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar and earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. Locke also received a cosmopolitan, aesthetic education through his travels in continental Europe, where he came to appreciate the beauty of art and experienced a freedom unknown to him in the United States. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America and his promotion of the literary and artistic work of African Americans as the quintessential creations of American modernism. In the process he looked to Africa to find the proud and beautiful roots of the race. Shifting the discussion of race from politics and economics to the arts, he helped establish the idea that Black urban communities could be crucibles of creativity. Stewart explores both Locke's professional and private life, including his relationships with his mother, his friends, and his white patrons, as well as his lifelong search for love as a gay man.  Stewart's thought-provoking biography recreates the worlds of this illustrious, enigmatic man who, in promoting the cultural heritage of Black people, became -- in the process -- a New Negro himself. (Oxford University Press)

Michele Zack is an award-winning writer, journalist, and historian whose work has been twice recognized by the American Society for State and Local History. She also received the Pfleuger Local History Prize from the Historical Society of Southern California. She reported for AsiaWeek and Far Eastern Economic Review in the 1990s when residing in Thailand, where she also wrote economic development speeches for three prime ministers and other officials. In California, she worked with the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, writing federal grants and developing contextual programs to link local to national history and improve the teaching of American history.

Those wishing to get books signed will be asked to purchase at least one copy of the author's most recent title from Vroman's. For each purchased copy of the newest title, customers may bring up to three copies from home to be signed. This policy applies to all Vroman's Bookstore events unless otherwise noted. Save your Vroman's receipt; it will be checked when you enter the signing line.

Event date: 
Thursday, May 24, 2018 - 7:00pm
Event address: 
695 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91101
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke By Jeffrey C. Stewart Cover Image
$42.99
ISBN: 9780195089578
Availability: Usually arrives at our store within 4-7 days
Published: Oxford University Press, USA - February 1st, 2018
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