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Alain Locke And The New Negro

 

            Alain Locke had a vision of the young, reincarnated, Negro having his own point of view and not being influenced by America. This New Negro would be intelligent and overcome all hardships of the past. Langston Hughes saw this imaginary Negro that Locke had described in both a good and bad light. He viewed the realistic aspects of this modern Negro. In Hughes' When The Negro Was In Vogue, he divulged both the ups and downs of this New Negro described by Locke. In the first paragraph of The New Negro, Locke states that, " He simply cannot be swathed in their formulae. For the younger generation is vibrant with a new psychology; the new spirit is awake in the masses, and under the very eyes of the professional observers is transforming what has been a perennial problem into the progressive phases of contemporary Negro life."" (Study Guide p.87) His narration of this new being portrays someone who he believes will rid African Americans of the problems that have been a constant in their lives. He believes that this New Negro can somehow use these hardships to aid in the progressive change of the Old Negro. Locke believed that the Old Negro, " had long become more of a myth than a man,"" and, " for generations in the mind of America, the Negro has been more of a formula than a human being "a something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be "kept down-, or "in his place-, or helped up, to be worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden-, and that is exactly the image that the New Negro was going to alter. (87) .
             The New Negro was, " moving forward under the control largely of his own objectives."" His "inner objectives- were "an attempt to repair a damaged group psychology and reshape a warped social perspective."" (91) He would make sure that " the Negro today is known for what he is even in his faults and shortcomings, and scorns a craven and precarious survival at the price of seeming to be what he is not.


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