Alain Locke: Faith And Philosophy (Studies in the Babi ... (ISBN 189068838X)

A mediocre book about a remarkable man:
Before discussing the merits of this book it is in order give a brief description of Alain Locke. Locke was born in Philadelphia in 1885, and studied philosophy at Harvard. In 1907 he received a Rhodes scholarship enabling him to study at Oxford. While in Europe he traveled and came into contact with the philosophers Brentano and Meinong. It is notable that he was the first, and until 1960 the only, black Rhodes scholar. Upon his return he secured a position at Howard University, Washington. He received his PhD in Philosophy (with a dissertation on axiology) from Harvard in 1918. His work The New Negro: An Interpretation of Negro Life (1925) established him as (one of) the main forces of the Harlem Renaissance. Alhtough his impression on academic philosophy has been slight (e.g. the 10 volume Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy has not one mention of Alain Locke). However, through his writing and lecturing he managed to influence american life, and secure a place in the history of the Harlem Renaissance and the american civil rights movement. He was born into a Christian (Episcopalian) family but converted to the Bahá'i religion in 1918. Attracted by that religions teachings on the equality of races, he involved himself in the american community's Race Amity Conferences and other activities aimed at achieving equality between the races. His overall involvement in the baha'i community was however less than enthusiastic. Partly, this seems to have been due to the bahá'i-community's periodic inability to implement its lofty ideals into practice. Locke's identity as a bahá'i has been unknown or at least unacknowledged by earlier biographers and researchers. Turning to the book itself: In addition to being a biography of Alain Locke this book's major contribution is to bring out and establish Locke's identity as a bahá'i. Regarded purely as a biography the book is more than acceptable (approx. 4 stars) and enjoyable. Contrary to another amazon-reviewer, I think that the author solves the biographer's perpetual problem of choosing between a thematic and a chronological presentation in an admirable way. The chapters are thematically held together which breaks up the 'cover-to-cover'-chronology of the book (the reader is taken back and forth in time as the books proceeds), but within each chapter the chronology is maintained. This structure contributes to the readability of the book. In addition, it enables the reader to focus only on those aspects of Locke's life that interest her. Given that this book is not simply a biography, but aims to show the influence of Locke's association with the Bahá'i religion on his intellectual output, such a structure is without doubt preferable. The book is, I guess, attractive to two, not necessarily distinct, groups of readers: 1. Those with an antecedent interest in Locke or the Harlem Renaissance. To this group, the book provides new insights and information about the extent and nature of Locke's involvement with the Bahá'i religion. 2. Those with an antecedent interest in the Bahá'i religion. To this group the book provides information about a, then-prominent, member of the bahá'i faith who, for strange reasons, is largely unknown in the contemporary literature on the bahá'i religion. In addition, and more interestingly, Buck aspires to show how Locke's philosophical work and the Bahá'i teachings influenced one another, and in this way extract the basics of a 'bahá'i philosophy'(p.6 and pp.187ff). In this respect the author completely fails. The problem is not that what he says is wrong. He doesn't say anything of substance on the subject at all. (One suspects that this is to a large extent due to ignorance of philosophy on the part of the author.) This still leaves a pretty good biography of Locke's life, but the fact that he at several places promises to give such an account but fails to deliver detracts from the overall score.

A Brief Description of Alain Locke: Faith & Philosophy:
Christopher Buck, Alain Locke: Faith & Philosophy (Los Angeles: Kalimát Press, 2005). With an introductory essay by Professor Leonard Harris of Purdue University (today's leading scholar on Alain Locke). One of the towering figures of African American history is Alain Locke -- the first black Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Howard University, "Dean" of the Harlem Renaissance. Locke was the most important African American intellectual between W. E. B. Du Bois and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here are the opening paragraphs in Chapter One of Alain Locke: Faith & Philosophy: ************* Chapter One INTRODUCTION Alain Locke democratized American culture and paved the way for the Civil Rights movement. During the Jim Crow era of American history, when civil rights were white rights, Locke was the genius behind the Harlem Renaissance, which David Levering Lewis aptly characterized as "Civil Rights by Copyright."1 Locke edited the monumental anthology, The New Negro (1925), hailed as the first national book of African America.2 In so doing, Locke ingeniously used culture as a strategy for ameliorating racism and for winning the respect of powerful white elites as potential agents for social and political transformation. Awakening the black masses to their noble African heritage and instilling pride in unique black contributions to American life, Locke may well be regarded as "the Martin Luther King of African American culture."3 Without Locke, there may not have been a Martin Luther King. The New Negro movement, for which Locke was the chief architect and spokesman, was singularly responsible for inculcating and cultivating the requisite group consciousness and solidarity necessary for the mobilization of African Americans during the Civil Rights era. As Martin Luther King was a man of faith, Alain Locke was also. Based on newly discovered documentation of his conversion in 1918, we can now say with certainty that Locke was member of the Bahá'í Faith for over three decades. As the youngest independent world religion, the Bahá'í Faith was clearly a leader in advocating racial harmony and full integration during the Jim Crow era. Through his service on several national Bahá'í committees, Locke was instrumental in organizing a number of "race amity" events. At various times, Locke lent his prestige to the Bahá'í Faith: he publicly identified himself as a Bahá'í in a 1952 issue of Ebony magazine, for example. By virtue of his being both a race leader and a cultural pluralist, Locke is certainly the most important Western Bahá'í to date in terms of his impact on American history and thought. This book documents and demonstrates the synergy between Locke's profession as a philosopher and his confession as a Bahá'í, which confirmed his commitment to racial harmony as a necessary prerequisite to world peace. ************* Many books have been written about Locke's contributions to black art and culture in the United States. These books have generally ignored the fact that Locke was a Baha'i. Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy fills in that missing link, telling the story of Locke's services to this new world religion from 1918 until his death in 1954. Based on Buck's painstaking archival research of the Alain Locke Papers at Howard University and elsewhere, this book also describes, for the first time in scholarship, Locke's philosophy of democracy ("A New Americanism") in nine dimensions -- ranging from the concept of "local democracy" all the way to "world democracy." Locke's philosophy of democracy presents a compelling argument for America's world role or "destiny" -- but if and only if America can first solve her own racial crisis at home. This topic should be of contemporary interest, especially since America is taking such a controversial leadership role in exporting "democracy" in the Middle East and around the world. But what does "democracy" mean? And how does "democracy" compare with Baha'i social principles? Locke has a compelling answer that should interest all Americans. Alain Locke: Faith & Philosophy is richly illustrated with rare historical photographs, including photos of Locke with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Ralph Bunche.

Great biography of an underappreciated literary and philosophical giant.:
Dr. Buck does a great, incredibly thorough job of presenting a biography of Alain Locke. Citations to nearly every factual statement in the book are provided. Locke was a giant of the Harlem Renaissance, the African-American community, and of the race unity movement. Yet he is poorly understood and often not even known at all. Buck proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Locke was indeed a genuine Baha'i for most of his life. However Buck shows that Locke was an enigmatic, aloof, almost paradoxical Baha'i. My only criticisms of the book relate to its format and editing. The book is not presented as a chronological biography, but rather is divided into chapters, which are then divided into subsections. This separation of various periods of his life/activities, breaks the flow of the book and causes the book at times not to read well. Certain topics are repeated several times. But on the whole this definitely covers what the author wanted to do, i.e. describe Locke's spiritual life and philosophy, especially his Baha'i life. It's definitely required reading for anyone seriously studying Locke, anyone studying the history of the American Baha'is in the early 20th century, or anyone just interested in reading a biography of a Baha'i.