Edited by the first African American Rhodes Scholar, this landmark anthology of fiction, poetry, essays, drama, music, and illustration is widely regarded as the key text of the Harlem Renaissance. Exploring social, political, and artistic change, the works include Locke’s titular tract, as well as contributions by Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, James Weldon Johnson, and other luminaries. AUTHOR: Alain Leroy Locke (1885 1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. Distinguished as the first African American Rhodes Scholar in 1907, Locke was the philosophical architect - the acknowledged Dean - of the Harlem Renaissance.