Item: i113029


Authentic Medal of:

United States of America
Franklin Mint ANCS Series – Dr. Alain Leroy Locke
1971 Proof Silver Medal 39mm (27.24 grams) Sterling Silver
Reference: Franklin Mint 0581 | Sculptor: Ernest Lauser
DR. ALAIN LEROY LOCKE 1886 1954 FIRST NEGRO RHODES SCHOLAR LAUSER, Alain facing 1/2 left.
A GENTLE MAN WHO TAUGHT THE STRENGTH OF THOUGHT, Hands outstretched to larger Hand.
Edge Lettering:
STERLING 71 P 0851

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Alain LeRoy Locke (September 13, 1885 – June 9, 1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. Distinguished in 1907 as the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, Locke became known as the philosophical architect —the acknowledged “Dean”— of the Harlem Renaissance. He is frequently included in listings of influential African Americans. On March 19, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed: “We’re going to let our children know that the only philosophers that lived were not Plato and Aristotle, but W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke came through the universe.”

Locke was the guest editor of the March 1925 issue of the periodical Survey Graphic, for a special edition titled “Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro”: about Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance, which helped educate white readers about its flourishing culture. In December of that year, he expanded the issue into The New Negro, a collection of writings by him and other African Americans, which would become one of his best-known works. A landmark in black literature (later acclaimed as the “first national book” of African America), it was an instant success. Locke contributed five essays: the “Foreword”, “The New Negro”, “Negro Youth Speaks”, “The Negro Spirituals”, and “The Legacy of Ancestral Arts”. This book established his reputation as “a leading African-American literary critic and aesthete.”

Locke’s philosophy of the New Negro was grounded in the concept of race-building; that race is not merely an issue of hereditary but is more an issue of society and culture. He raised overall awareness of potential black equality; he said that no longer would blacks allow themselves to adjust or comply with unreasonable white requests. This idea was based on self-confidence and political awareness. Although in the past the laws regarding equality had been ignored without consequence by white America, Locke’s philosophical idea of The New Negro allowed for fair treatment. Because this was an idea and not a law, people held its power. If they wanted this idea to flourish, they were the ones who would need to “enforce” it through their actions and overall points of view.

While his own writing was sophisticated philosophy, and therefore not popularly accessible, he mentored other writers in the movement who would become more broadly known, such as Zora Neale Hurston.

One author whose work Locke edited for both Survey Graphic as well as The New Negro was art collector, critic, and theorist Albert Barnes. Barnes and Locke were connected in their shared views on the importance of Negro art in America. Barnes promulgated notions of the superiority of black art in terms of spirituality and emotion, owing to the collective suffering from which black artists draw to create their work. Locke argued for the primacy of craft objects and the visual tradition as being the greatest contributor of black art to the American canon. The commonalities between the two men’s’ stance on black art led Barnes to believe Locke was stealing his ideas, creating a rift between the two men. Locke touches on his feud with Barnes in his book The Negro in Art.

Locke identified himself as a Bahá’í throughout the last half of his life (1918-1954). He declared his belief in Baháʼu’lláh in the year 1918. Due to the lack of an official enrollment system for the religion, the date when Locke converted to that faith is unverified. However, the National Baháʼí Archives discovered a “Baháʼí Historical Record” card that Locke completed in 1935 for a Baháʼí census from the National Spiritual Assembly. He was one of seven African-American members from the Washington, D.C. Baháʼí movement to complete the card. On the card, Locke wrote the year 1918 as the year he was accepted into the Baháʼí religion, and wrote Washington, D.C., as the place he was accepted. It was common to write to ʻAbdu’l-Bahá to declare one’s new faith, and Locke received a letter, or “tablet”, from ʻAbdu’l-Bahá in return.

When ʻAbdu’l-Bahá died in 1921, Locke enjoyed a close relationship with Shoghi Effendi, then head of the Baháʼí Faith. Shoghi Effendi is reported to have said to Locke, “People as you, Mr. Gregory, Dr. Esslemont and some other dear souls are as rare as diamond.” He is among some 40 African Americans known to have joined the religion during the ministry of ʻAbdu’l-Bahá before the leader’s death in later 1921.

Locke was homosexual, and may have encouraged and supported other gay African Americans who were part of the Harlem Renaissance. Given the discriminatory laws against it, he was not fully open about his orientation. He referred to it as a point of “vulnerable/invulnerability”, representing an area of both risk and strength.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km²), the United States is the world’s third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe’s 3.9 million square miles (10.1 million km²). With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital’s federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries.

Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, and the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776. The war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848.

During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery. By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the country’s status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The Rights Acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968 outlaws discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U.S. Moon landing. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world’s sole superpower.

The United States is the world’s oldest surviving federation. It is a federal republic and a representative democracy. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States (OAS), and other international organizations. The United States is a highly developed country, with the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for approximately a quarter of global GDP. The U.S. economy is largely post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world’s largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U.S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country.

Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank very high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, and worker productivity. The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, and is a leading political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.