The New Negro

The New Negro

Editor	Alain Locke
Publisher	Atheneum
Publication date	1925
OCLC	640055594

The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925) is an anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays on African and African-American art and literature edited by Alain Locke, who lived in Washington, DC, and taught at Howard University during the Harlem Renaissance.^[1] As a collection of the creative efforts coming out of the burgeoning New Negro Movement or Harlem Renaissance, the book is considered by literary scholars and critics to be the definitive text of the movement.^[2] Part 1 of The New Negro: An Interpretation, titled "The Negro Renaissance", includes Locke's title essay "The New Negro", as well as nonfiction essays, poetry, and fiction by writers including Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Eric Walrond.

The New Negro: An Interpretation dives into how the African Americans sought social, political, and artistic change. Instead of accepting their position in society, Locke saw the New Negro as championing and demanding civil rights. In addition, his anthology sought to change old stereotypes and replace them with new visions of black identity that resisted simplification. The essays and poems in the anthology mirror real life events and experiences.^[3]

The anthology reflects the voice of middle-class African-American citizens that wanted to have equal civil rights like their white, middle-class counterparts. However, some writers, such as Langston Hughes, sought to give voice to the lower, working class.^[3]