LETTER THEEDITOR FROM
By DeWAYNE WICKHAM
This year is the 100th anniversary of the publication of a magazine and book that collectively have come to be known as The New Negro , which is a metaphor for the great sociological , artistic and politician changes the Harlem Renaissance wrought upon this nation .
Alain Locke , the first African American Rhodes Scholar , who is best known as the “ Father of the Harlem Renaissance ,” also birthed the talk of a “ New Negro ” with his cover story in the 1925 issue of the magazine , Survey Graphic .
The piece , which was titled “ Harlem , Mecca of The New Negro ,” credited the Black men and women of the Harlem Renaissance for being “ the advanced guard of the African peoples in their contact with Twentieth Century civilization ,” and for “ rehabilitating the race in world esteem from the loss of prestige ” that African Americans suffered after 246 years of enslavement in America .
Harlem , Locke wrote , was “ the home of the Negro ’ s “ Zionism .’”
To Locke ’ s way of thinking , the Harlem Renaissance was the catapult from which Black people in this country would attain “ a significant and satisfying new phase of group development .”
While , of course , Blacks made big gains over the past 100 years , many of those changes are now threatened – while others have already been rolled back – by the rear guard of the architects of American slavery and the Jim Crow century that followed .
So , we offer you this issue of the Morgan Global Journalism Review in the hope that our recalling of the Harlem Renaissance and acknowledgement of the 100 th anniversary of Alain Locke ’ s vision of The New Negro will spur a new awakening among this nation ’ s Black population .
And we hope that when it comes to what ’ s ahead for people of African descent in this country that Dr . Nat Irvin – the Black futurist who was interviewed for this edition of the Morgan Global Journalism Review – is right when he says : Bet on Black . ■
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