ALAIN LEROY LOCKE was born in Philadelphia on September 13, 1886 to Pliny Ishmael Locke and Mary Hawkins Locke. The young Alain attended the Central High School of Philadelphia and the School of Pedagogy. Entering Harvard College in 1904, he studied under the celebrated faculty in philosophy that included Josiah Royce, Hugo Munsterberg, George Santayana, and William James. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and named a Rhodes Scholar in 1907. Locke pursued studies at Hertford College, Oxford University, from 1907 to 1910, and at the University of Berlin for the academic year, 1910-1911. He received the Ph.D. degree from Harvard in 1918 in philosophy after a successful defense of his dissertation on "Problems of Classification in Theory of Value. [His] career as a teacher began at Howard University in 1912 and extended over a period of forty-one years. In 1921, he became Head of the Department of Philosophy and held this position until his retirement in 1953. In that year, Locke was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by Howard University.

     Philosopher and educator, Locke played a central role in the emergence of the literary and aesthetic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. One of his most important writings is a paper published in 1944 under the title "Moral Imperatives for World Order.” In this article, Locke strongly proclaimed his belief that “Realism and idealism should be combined in striking for a world order.” Indeed, he stated “Skeletal ideals of universal human brotherhood have been in the world a long time and we are further from tribal savagery and its tribalism because of these ideals. But they are but partial expressions of what we hope to make them mean and what today's world crisis demands.” Thus, he argued, “The moral imperatives of a new world order are an internationally limited idea of national sovereignty, a non-monopolistic and culturally tolerant concept of race and religious loyalties freed of sectarian bigotry.”

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http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/locke.html