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The BMX- NY Gatekeepers  e-Newsletter

APRIL  6th, 2012
Black Men's Xchange-National
  The BMX-New York Chapter
~ Celebrating 10 YEARS ~
December 2002 - December 2012

BMX-NY - Celebrating X Years



 
In This Week's Gatekeepers Issue
This Friday's BMX-NY Topic:
Taking Care of Yourself
Friday Forum Recap (03|30|12): BUILDING A SAME GENDER LOVING LIBERATION MOVEMENT: A Dialogue with Same Gender Loving Sisters
Upcoming Topics: BMX- NY 2012 Spring Calendar
Community Corner Announcements
SGL Black Heroes:
Alain Locke
The Bawabisi SGL Symbol
About The BMX-NY Chapter...
BMX Mission Statement
Black Men's Xchange National Gatekeepers e-Newsletter Archive Homepage
 
 

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When & Where Are Our Chapter Spaces?
 
BMX-New York Chapter:
730 Riverside Drive
(@150th Street)*
Suite 9E
Harlem, New York 10031
212-283-0219
Website: BMXNY.org 


*PLEASE NOTE:
THE DOOR ENTRANCE IS
LOCATED ON 150th STREET.
Ages 18 and up. 

Time:
8:00 PM - 11:00 PM
(Every Friday night, except for our hiatus month in August)
   
Directions: 
Take the #1 Train to 145th Street or the M4, M5, M101 or M100 to 149th Street & Broadway
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Contact Us

Black Men's Xchange-NY

730 Riverside Drive
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Email:
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Phone: 212-283-0219

Official BMX-NY Website:
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.Welcome To The Black Men's Xchange National Gatekeepers e-Newsletter. This e-newsletter is for the BMX-New York chapter gathering  on Friday, April 6th, 2012.


 

Brothers, please if you would take the time and tell us about your experience at a BMX-NY meeting. This is a confidential Survey with no names required. We appreciate your time and comments as we continue to try and make your experience at BMX-NY one of true community. 

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BROTHERS! Although not required, BRINGING A POTLUCK DISH AND/OR BEVERAGE of your choosing would be a generous offering for the repast after the group discussion! Your offering defrays a cost to the organization.  Also, end of gathering DONATIONS are also greatly appreciated, too. THANK YOU!

ACHE!

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PLEASE NOTE: 

As he moves in the direction of doctoral study, it is with tremendous pride, gratitude and love that BMX-NY Director of Operations, John-Martin Green passes on the reins of leadership to the Steering Committee.

 

 

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In the coming weeks Friday night dialogues will move to the Penthouse of the Dorothy Day Houses, located at 583 Riverside Drive, 7th floor (on the north corner of Riverside at 135th St.) .  

 

Please be on the lookout for the date of the move.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

The BMX National Annual Leadership Summit & Retreat 

For Diverse Black Men Who Love Men


In the beautiful California, Wine Country and Coastline,

May 10-14, 2012  

 

 

BMX National Leadership Retreat Flyer 2012 (CC)  

Official Website: BlackLeaderEvents.com  

  

This year's retreat is located one hour north of San Francisco in Guerneville, California. The town is minutes from the famous, Bodega Bay beach coastline and mountain recreation territories.  The retreat will be hosted by the luxurious

West Sonoma Inn & Spa Center, which borders the Russian River.

It's centrally located to dining and cafes.

 

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE!

 
Date: May 10-14, 2012
Site Location: West Sonoma Inn & Spa
14100 Brookside Lane, Guerneville, CA

GOOGLE MAP


Cost: $300 to $450.00 (Sliding scale)  

 

 

            

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BMX- NY  Topic  For  This  Friday,  April  6th2012 

 

 

Taking Care of Yourself

    

Facilitated by Tommie Thompson    


Hands of Sunlight


How do you take care of yourself?  What does health self-care look like?

 

What do you do that feels good but isn't good for you?

Black Man With Headache 

 

What do you need to start doing?  What illnesses run in your family/are you susceptible to?

 

 
Black Man In Mirror 

When you think of your health through your sexuality/SGLness, what concerns you the most?
 

What would you look and feel like at your healthiest?

Apple of Health 
 

  

 
  
           
 

 

Friday  Forum  Recap

(BMX- NY Topic  Hi- lites  From  March  23rd ,  2012) 

 

BUILDING A SAME GENDER LOVING

LIBERATION MOVEMENT:

A Dialogue with Same Gender Loving Sisters 

   

Facilitated by JM Green & Carmen Neely

 

Harlem Pride's Camen Neely (@ Marcus Garvey Park) 

         

 

In a scintillating BMX-NY dialogue between same gender loving women and men about Building a Same Gender Loving Liberation Movement, participants took up the following questions:

 


Are there fundamental human rights of which we are still deprived in our community?  If so, what are they?     

 

"Tolerance...Just having the right to do what we want to do..."


"The right of liberty...to be free...that we're not enslaved...to [be able to] talk to our parents about who we are...to talk on the job about who we are...in church..."


"That's something I'm going through now...I'm in therapy now...For me it's a fear...[I'm] Seeing someone...I'm dating...[And, around] public displays of affection [it's scary] if I want to kiss my boyfriend in front of [hetero Black folk]...How will they react?...My fear is [of] being looked at differently...Feeling free to fully express myself [is a fundamental human right I am still deprived of]..."


{Facilitator says, "Yes, there is a connection between risk and rights...Risk-taking is scary...Is the freedom to express ourselves fully a human right?...As long as it doesn't infringe on others' rights, I think so...I've been in a quandary about whether or not I infringed on my own freedom in a work context...Team teaching a leadership training workshop in a high school a couple of weeks ago, my partner asked the students if they had any questions for us, and one asked what we did outside of the context within which we engage with them...When it was my turn, I spoke of my work as a theatre practitioner, and as a singer and said that I run a Black men's empowerment organization, leaving out the same gender loving part of that description which I typically cite...And, I wondered if I hadn't backslid into an old shame-based or fear-based relationship to my same gender lovingness...or rather, if I wasn't operating within some constraint...or perceived constraint within the job context...Either the Dept. of Ed. or the agency I'm working with the DOE for..."


{Co-Facilitator says, "I know exactly what you're talking about...I'm a sixth grade teacher...I see our young bloods grappling [with their budding sexuality]...I am constrained by law...I'm not free to see a youth struggling and go to them and say, 'I see you, and there is nothing wrong with what you feel,' without running the risk of winding up down at 65 Court Street, being accused of trying to produce homosexuals..."}


"At work or at school, as a teacher [acknowledging my sexuality] would be grounds for my dismissal...They asked me to do a voiceover today...[A guy said] 'I like your voice...No homo, no homo...I just like your voice'...I never feel free to express myself outside of home..."


"I feel free now in college...I write short stories about gay relationships...I try to break down stigma...In the latest story, I wrote a scene where [one male character] looking into the [other male character's] eyes, takes his hand and says, 'I've never met anyone like you...I think I'm falling in love with you'...And [my classmates] said...'That doesn't happen...All gay people think about is sex'...And I said, 'I'm gay, and I look for love'...And we started arguing and the Professor told them, 'You'll have to take that up with him outside of class'...[But] Around my elders down in North Carolina I [still] don't feel free..."


"I don't feel free yet...I'm from North Carolina, where I conducted the choir in church...They have this saying...'Let not your good be evil spoken of'...I was not able to be free in church...When I came here...I'm still conducting a choir [but, in an SGL congregation]...[Now] I don't have to worry about my job being in jeopardy...I still don't feel free at home [though] with my eighty-year-old uncle I stay with..."


"I am a Reverend...an interfaith minister, and I don't feel safe on my Facebook page...It's not that I'm not out...You just can't put everything on Facebook...When I think about my parishioners, I want them to see God first...My daughter who was so, 'Mommy's gonna' burn in hell' [has come around now]..."

 


How active are we in our communities (e.g. local communities, Black communities, Civil Rights or Gay Liberation initiatives?)


"The agency I work for, they're supportive...The IT department for the city...And I work in EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity)...I've certainly been an advocate for a lot of people...But I had a birthday party recently...A really big [SGL] birthday party...But I didn't feel comfortable inviting my co-workers...I didn't know what they would say...if they would feel comfortable...I felt more comfortable inviting White people than Black people...My brother is in jail for several BnE's (Breaking and Enterings)...and I wrote to him and told him I was gay...and he wrote back and said, 'You're my brother and I love you'...And then started quoting scripture about who will not inherit the kingdom of God...My sister used to ask me, 'Are you gay?'...'Are you gay?'...'Are you gay?'...And I would say, 'No'...I finally said, 'Yes,' and she said, 'You faggot!'...I should be free [to be who I am]...Nobody's paying my bills...I shouldn't have to answer to them for anything..."


{Facilitator says, "I'm going to push back a little where you say, 'nobody's paying my bills'...I recognize that sentiment as a standard justification for observing the right to privacy, as distinct from an assertion of the right to be present in our sexuality...And [with regard to] the notion that one shouldn't have to answer to others...By my reckoning, [where we would observe change] there's no such thing as 'should,' there is only what is...And we take that and make the best of it that we can...Which leads to the question, how is freedom achieved?...And, where do rights come from?...Do people give us our rights?...For that matter, did Lincoln [simply] free the enslaved Africans?..."}  [Participants respond variously,,,'No'...'You take your rights'...'We fought for them'...]

 


Is it possible that our political inactivity/invisibility might be related to conflict around self-worth?


"For a long time I had a problem making my sexuality equivalent with my Blackness...I am an effeminate Black man...And I get so tired of Black people saying, I'm not a real man...I get so pissed off about Black people being so ignorant...I wear Moshood because I like his designs...Once I was on the A- train...and I was wearing a head wrap...And I was [attacked] by these ignorant [guys] who were [challenging my manhood]...I get so tired of Black people's ignorance...I can't get over it...And I don't know what to do..."


{Facilitator asks, "What does one do to get over others' ignorance?..."}


{Co-Facilitator says, "I'm not a 'lipstick lesbian,' but I like to get my hair done and put on a little makeup sometimes...[So] Some people say to me, 'You're not a lesbian'...I deal with energy...[It's important that I am mindful of how I use my energy]...If I give my energy over sometimes I say, 'It's very unfortunate you feel that way,' and keep it moving...Cause all the people in our community have all these defined labels...That sort of ignorance [can be difficult to challenge]... That's why you have to be present in the community, so they can see all the different [kinds of people we are]...This young Brother at the Pride launch last year saw me on TV with my hair done and makeup [and came to me] and asked me, 'Are you a lesbian?'...I told him, 'I [love women] too'...It has to be your definition of [manhood or womanhood you're asserting]..."}


{Facilitator says, "I agree with Carmen...It is imperative that we be present in our sexuality in the community so that they can become acquainted with the full spectrum of our collective humanity...What is vital is that we train ourselves to take a deep breath and remain calm when confronted with ignorance so that we can embody the difference between what they think and what is real... I find that, as I speak plainly and honestly and intelligently to people, it's surprising how often they can hear what I'm saying..."}


"I was raised in a strict Pentecostal home...My husband and I are both ordained elders in the Holiness church...First we had a commitment ceremony, and then when it became legal, we got married...There came a point when I had to take inventory of myself...[I decided] I'm tired of lying to myself...And lying to everybody else...Saying I was married to a woman...[After all] If you go to a Holiness church, who's there but homosexuals?...I went to a panel [titled] 'Can You be Saved and Gay?'...Of course you can...You asked the question, how do you become free?...Within yourself [first]...I got fed up of hiding and lying to myself...[I asked myself] 'Why am I going to hide?'...[Out in public now] we hold each others' hands...We kiss sometimes..."


"I don't think we're a-hundred-percent free...If we can't hold hands...People think we're so fearless...But, sometimes, even [my man and I] are afraid [to express affection publically]...I used to be jealous of lesbians [and the way they seem to be freer than we]...I have issues with my family [around my inability to be free with them]...I've come some ways from where I started, but [I've still a ways to go]..."


{Facilitator says, "Yes, the right to express affection for the object of one's affection might be construed as a basic human right...A few weeks ago I was down in DC on some BMX business, and I met a Brother there with whom I clicked, and we went out to a dance concert one evening, and as we left the theater, he took me by the hand and we walked along hand in hand for a long time together...And we walked through and by a lot of Black people and...along with feeling proud to be holding the hand of this powerful Brother, it was really refreshing to be among family being intimate the way we be intimate..."}


"How did they react?..."


{Facilitator says, "A few looked, but for the most part, there was no reaction...That's the funny thing about fear...Sometimes the biggest Boogie-man is the one in our minds..."}


"Why is there a division between SGL Brothers and Sisters?...We're in the same type of war..."


"I came out in the seventies and it was my [SGL] brothers who helped me through that struggle...[I remember] Even just looking at my girlfriend on the subway...Brothers would notice, and I might get into a fight...As time went on, [SGL Sisters and Brothers] moved in different directions...I think it's economic...When I came out, none of us were working and we all cooked and hung out together...But then, as they started working, and I was raising kids and whatever else I was doing, we moved in different directions..."


{Co-Facilitator says, "I've always had my Brothers around me...My closest friend is an SGL Brother...But there are the extremes...Brothers who don't like 'fish,' as they call us...and the Sisters who don't like the Brothers...Like [a segment of] the women's feminist movement...And I don't think we can change those extremes...But those of us who can associate with each other should...We need each other...About Sisters being freer...That [latitude] is about a male fantasy...We have to come together ...We have these [common] issues...You can picket...You can march...But in the end, it's about casting a vote..."}


"Freedom is gon' start with yourself...And you're going to have to fight for it...With words, and sometimes with your fists...I have to live my truth...I wanted to hold hands [with a boyfriend] and he said, 'We can't hold hands'...And, I said, 'Why can't we hold hands?'...And, so we did...I started carrying my little knife with me...If I'm going to die, you're going to die first...You're no less a man because you're effeminate...That's somebody else's reality..."

 


Is the LGBT Movement enough?  If not, do we need a movement to address our issues?  And, if so, are we capable of building and sustaining such a movement?


"No...The 'G' in LGBT, I don't feel represents any of us...I read an article recently about how it get's better...about how Dan Savage...a gay commentator [has been] instrumental in raising awareness about anti-gay bullying...But [he] never once showed people of color...We have it worse when we come out [in our community] because we don't have institutions [and property] like Chelsea, etcetera, to come out to...We have to take something back like our dignity and self-determination... Savage is worried about his own...We have to be worried about our own..."


"No, the LGBT Movement is not enough...Earlier we talked about how it's more acceptable for lesbians to hold hands [publically]...Straight girls can do it too...It's not uncommon to hear heterosexual women saying to each other, 'Your breasts are so beautifully round'...Men don't do that with each other...We don't talk about how beautifully shaped each other's penises are...We can't do it by ourselves...We need Sisters..."


"[Reading from the internet about human rights] 'The right to live, to property, free speech, to express his or her sexual orientation'...Has not been effective for us...Because we're not out, we don't seize the opportunity to teach people things...If we don't remove the preconceived ideas, who will?...Some honestly are just trapped in preconceived ideas...If we don't step up...They keep tapping us on the shoulder, and then when we look to see who's tapping, they [go around the other side and] snatch something away from us...We have resiliency...And they want it...So, what do they do?...They distract us...They took away our African values and teach us materialism...They take away our unity and give us distractions..."


"Part of the reason SGL women have reached farther than SGL men is that they're seen as more manly...stronger...Whereas, same gender loving men might be viewed as more womanly...weaker..."


"Also because men aren't threatened by women's sexuality..."


"In the eighties same gender loving men and women partied together...TRAX [was one place]...By the late eighties, early nineties, we separated...[amid] the AIDS crisis...The women who were bisexual felt we were infecting them..."


{Facilitator asks, "In the here and now, would we agree that we need a movement to address our issues?..."}  [Participants respond, "Yes."]  {How do we go about building and sustaining such a movement?..."}  [Participants respond, "By coming together in meetings like this,"..."By reaching out to each other"..."Remembering that SGL males' and females' issues are the same"..."Nobody is going to save us but us..."]

 


 Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin

SUNRISE: February 5th, 1995 to SUNSET: February 26, 2012

(Age 17)   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upcoming  Topics:  BMX- NY  2012  Spring  Calendar          

(PLEASE NOTE THAT TOPICS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE; 
WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTERS WILL REFLECT ANY NEW CHANGES) 
 

Under Construction


  

        

 

 

 

 Community  Corner  Announcements


The BMX National Annual Leadership Summit & Retreat 

For Diverse Black Men Who Love Men


In the beautiful California, Wine Country and Coastline,

May 10-14, 2012 

  

BMX National Leadership Retreat Flyer 2012 (CC)
Official Website: BlackLeaderEvents.com

    

This year's retreat is located one hour north of San Francisco in Guerneville, California. The town is minutes from the famous, Bodega Bay beach coastline and mountain recreation territories.  The retreat will be hosted by the luxurious

West Sonoma Inn & Spa Center, which borders the Russian River.

It's centrally located to dining and cafes.

  

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE!

 
Date: May 10-14, 2012  

Site Location: West Sonoma Inn & Spa

14100 Brookside Lane, Guerneville, CA

GOOGLE MAP


Cost: $300 to $450.00 (Sliding scale)    

 

 

  


SGL  Black  Heroes 

Alain  Locke  (1886  -  1954) 

 

 Alain Locke 1

   

 

Alain Locke 2Born Alain LeRoy Locke, September 13, 1886, in Philadelphia, PA; died June 9, 1954, in New York City; son of Pliny Ishmael (a teacher and postal clerk) and Mary Hawkins Locke (a schoolteacher). Education: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, B.A. 1907; Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, England, 1907-10, B.Litt 1910; graduate study, University of Berlin, Germany, 1910-11; Harvard University, Ph.D. in philosophy 1918. Politics: Republican. Religion: Episcopalian. Memberships: Member: American Negro Academy; American Philosophical Association; Associates in Negro Folk Education; International Institute of African Languages and Culture; League of American Writers; National Order of Honor and Merit (Haiti); Society for Historical Research; corresponding member Academie des Sciences Colonailes; honorary fellow Sociedad de Estudios Afro-Cubanos. 

 

 

Career
Howard University, Washington, DC, assistant professor of education, 1912-17, professor of philosophy, 1917-54; Student Army Training Camp instructor, 1918; Harvard University, Austin teaching fellow, 1916-17; French Oriental Archaeological Society, Cairo, Egypt, research sabbatical,1924-25; Fisk University, Nashville, TN, exchange professor, 1927-28; Inter-American exchange professor in Haiti, 1943; visiting professor: University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1945-46; New School of Social Research, New York City, 1947; College of the City of New York, 1948.

 


Awards


Rhodes Scholar, 1907-10; Honor Roll of Race Relations, 1942. 

 

 

Writings

  • Editor, The New Negro: An Interpretation, A. & C. Boni, 1925.
  • Editor with Montgomery Gregory, Plays of Negro Life: A Source-Book of Native American Drama, Harper, 1927.
  • Editor, Four Negro Poets, Simon & Schuster, 1927.
  • A Decade of Negro Self-Expression, 1928.
  • The Negro in America, American Library Association, 1933.
  • Frederick Douglass: A Biography of Anti-Slavery, 1935.
  • The Negro and His Music, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936.
  • Negro Art: Past and Present, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936.
  • Editor, The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1940.
  • Editor with Bernhard J. Stern, When Peoples Meet: A Study in Race and Culture Contacts, Committee on Workshops, Progressive Education Association, 1942.
  • Le Role du Negre dans la Culture des Ameriques, Impr. de l'Etat, 1943. 

 

 

Narrative Essay


Philosophy professor Alain Locke put forth the theory of "cultural pluralism," which values the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.


The preeminent African American intellectual of his generation, Alain Locke was the leading promoter and interpreter of the artistic and cultural contributions of African Americans to American life. More than anyone else, he familiarized white Americans with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, while encouraging African American authors to set high artistic standards in their depiction of life. As a professor of philosophy, he expounded his theory of "cultural pluralism" that valued the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.


Locke was born into a prominent Philadelphia family in 1886. His grandfather, Ishmael Locke, was a free African American and teacher. The Society of Friends (Quakers) sponsored his attending Cambridge University in England for further education, after which Ishmael spent four years in Liberia establishing schools. While in Africa, he married an African American educator engaged in similar work. Returning to the United States, he became headmaster of a school in Providence, Rhode Island, and then principal of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia.


Alain's father, Pliny Locke, graduated from this institute in 1867, then taught mathematics there for two years before leaving to teach newly freed African Americans in North Carolina. In 1872, he enrolled in Howard University's law school while working as an accountant in the Freedmen's Bureau and the Freedmen's Bank and serving for a time as the private secretary for General O. O. Howard, the head of the Freedmen's Bureau. Completing law school in 1874, he returned to Philadelphia to become a clerk in the U.S. Post Office. Mary Hawkins, Alain's mother, was a descendant of Charles Shorter. A free African American, Shorter had been a soldier in the War of 1812 and helped to establish an educational tradition in his family. Mary continued this tradition by becoming a teacher.


Pliny Locke and Mary Hawkins were engaged for 16 years, not marrying until they were middle-aged. Alain, their only child, was born in 1886 and nurtured in an urbane, cultivated home environment. Six years later his father died, and his mother supported her son through teaching. Young Alain contracted rheumatic fever early in his childhood. The disease permanently damaged his heart and restricted his physical activities. In their place, he spent his time reading books and learning to play the piano and violin.


Locke attended Central High School, graduating second in the class of 1902, and then studied at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, where he moved up to first in his class. Entering Harvard University, he studied under William James and some of the other leading American philosophers on the faculty. Locke completed Harvard's four-year program in three, graduating magna cum laude in 1907, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and winning the school's most prestigious award, the Bowdoin Prize, for an essay in English.


It was a remarkable achievement for anyone, not to mention an African American during this highly segregated era. While many white American scholars were seeking to prove the intellectual inferiority of African Americans to justify racial segregation, Locke became a symbol of achievement and a powerful argument for offering African Americans equal opportunity at white educational institutions.


Continuing his intellectual accomplishments, Locke was named a Rhodes Scholar, the first African American chosen for this distinguished award, and sailed to England in 1907 to attend Oxford University. He studied philosophy, Greek, and Literae Humaniores, receiving a bachelor of literature degree in 1910. From Oxford he moved to Germany for advanced work in philosophy at the University of Berlin from 1910 to 1911.


Europe at that time was the acknowledged center of Western civilization, and Locke's years there proved vital to his intellectual development. His exposure to modern literature, music, art, and dance, along with his meeting many Africans and other nonwhites from around the world, created new perspectives for viewing American society and culture. Racial discrimination, he realized, was a global problem.

 

 

Became an Educator


Returning to the United States in early 1912, Locke was faced with an unusual dilemma. Given his academic training and intellectual experiences, he was more qualified than many white college professors. But because of his race, he was unable to teach at a white college. Yet this same level of achievement set him vastly apart from his fellow African Americans.


Being unusually introspective and perceptive, Locke recognized these limitations. To better familiarize himself with the everyday segregated world of America, he took a six-month tour of the southern states. Witnessing widespread prejudice and discrimination, he decided that only by setting high standards and demonstrating similar accomplishments as whites could African Americans gain respect and equality. By teaching at the college level and promoting African and African American culture, he would further this goal.


That September, Locke was appointed an assistant professor of English at Howard University, an African American college, in Washington, DC. He set about to establish Howard as the country's preeminent African American university, a training ground for African American intellectuals, and a center for African American culture and research on racial problems. But the school's board of trustees twice refused to approve his teaching courses on comparative race relations or African American studies, maintaining that the Howard was a nonracial institution.


Frustrated, Locke turned his attention back to philosophy. In 1916, he received a one-year appointment as an Austin Teaching Fellow at Harvard and began his dissertation under the idealist philosopher, Josiah Royce. Two years later he received his doctorate degree and returned to Howard as a full professor of philosophy. He would chair this department until his retirement in 1953.

 

 

Stressed Blacks' Contribution to Egypt


Locke became one of the leading members of the Howard faculty as well as a major inspiration to the student body and the growing national African American self-awareness movement of the 1920s. In 1924, he took a sabbatical leave to work with the French Oriental Archaeological Society in Egypt and the Sudan. His experiences there, including his presence at the reopening of Tutankhamen's tomb, reinforced his belief in the strong historic and cultural roots of African civilization. Lecturing widely upon his return to the United States, Locke stressed the contribution of Africans to Egypt's multiracial society, the world's first advanced civilization, a contribution not widely acknowledged by white scholars.


Locke's return to Howard coincided with a power struggle between the predominantly Black student body and faculty, who desired a more African American-oriented institution, against the university's white president and board of trustees who sought to maintain its traditional nonracial status. Along with several other professors, Locke was dismissed in 1925, ostensibly as a cost-cutting measure. That September, he expressed his views in a Survey Graphic magazine article, "Negro Education Bids for Par," stating that African American education, "to the extent that it is separate, ought to be free to develop its own racial interests and special aims for both positive and compensatory reasons."


A storm of protest by the student body, alumni, national African American press, and fellow academics compelled the board to eventually reinstate him with full pay. But Locke did not return to teach on campus until 1928 with the installation of Howard's first African American president, Mordecai W. Johnson, who shared his goals of creating a predominantly African American university.


These years of temporary release from his academic duties proved to be among Locke's most productive periods. A major contributor to Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life and Survey Graphic, he edited a special issue of the latter publication devoted to the Harlem Renaissance, the flourishing of African American art, literature, and music in New York City during the 1920s. Expanding it into a book and shifting the focus from Harlem to overall African American cultural life, Locke authored The New Negro: An Interpretation in 1925. It was an outstanding anthology of the leading African American fiction, poetry, drama, and essays by himself and others describing the changing state of race relations in the United States.


The New Negro became the symbol of a new era, documenting the social and cultural innovations of the younger African American generation. It contributed to a growing race consciousness, self confidence, and sophistication of an increasingly urbanized African American population. In his foreword, Locke asserted that African American life was "not only establishing new contacts and founding new centers, it is finding a new soul." He compared this movement with similar efforts taking place around the globe in Russia, India, China, Palestine, and many other countries.


Because of his efforts, white critics began to take African American writing seriously, and African American writers saw themselves for the first time as part of a broad but unified literary movement. Most Harlem Renaissance artists sought not only to develop their work into high art, but also to use it as a means to better race relations and American society.


With the success of The New Negro, Locke became the leading authority on contemporary African American culture and used his position to promote the careers of young artists and authors like Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes. He encouraged them to seek out subjects in African American life and to set high artistic standards for themselves. Writing in a Black World essay entitled "Alain Locke: Cultural and Social Mentor," Richard A. Long stated, it is "no exaggeration to say that the Harlem Renaissance as we know it is marked strongly by the presence of Alain Locke, and would have been something rather different without him and the role of mentor which he filled with modesty and elegance."

   

   
In Demand as a Visiting Scholar


When World War II ended, Locke was one of the best known African American scholars in the country. A regular contributor to many magazines, journals, and reference works, he was a member of the editorial board of the American Scholar and, in 1945, the first African American elected president of the American Association for Adult Education, a predominantly white national organization.


As American universities slowly began to desegregate in the North and West, Locke was suddenly in great demand as a visiting scholar. During the 1945-1946 academic year he served as visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. The following year he was a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research in what had become his second home for many years, New York City, and held a similar appointment the next year at the City College of New York (CCNY).


After 1948 he began teaching concurrently at CCNY and Howard. As he neared retirement, Locke reviewed his long career at Howard, proud of his success in using philosophy to stimulate critical thinking among his students, helping to create an African American intellectual elite, and his hard work in transforming a small segregated college into the nation's leading African American educational center. His final achievement was to secure a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at the school in 1953, a major milestone in the history of African American education.
Locke retired later that year and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Howard, a rare expression of esteem for a faculty member. He moved permanently to New York City and continued working on his magnum opus, The Negro in American Culture, a definitive study of the contribution of African Americans to American society. Unfortunately his recurrent heart problems returned in the spring of 1954, causing his death that June. He bequeathed his extensive collection of African art and all his papers to Howard University. His unfinished manuscript was completed by Margaret Just Butcher.

 

 

Sources


Books


Butcher, Margaret J. The Negro in American Culture: Based on Materials Left by Alain Locke, Knopf, 1956.


The Critical Temper of Alain Locke, edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart, Garland, 1983.


Linnemann, Russell J. Alain Locke: Reflections on a Modern Renaissance Man, Louisiana State University Press, 1982.


Washington, Johnny, Alain Locke and Philosophy: A Quest for Cultural Pluralism, Greenwood Press, 1986.


Periodicals


Black World, November 1970, p.87-90.

 

 

BMX-NY's Source: http://www.africawithin.com/bios/alain_locke.htm 

 

  

 

 

 



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Bawabisi SGL Symbol (Partial Transparency)

The SGL symbol, the Bawabisi, is inspired by Nigerian Nsibidi script and West African Adrinkra symbols. The two facing semi-circles represent unity and love. The figure has been split symmetrically in half to suggest parts of a whole that mirror each other. Dots are often used in Adinkra symbols to represent commitment and pluralism. The split and dots, with the addition of color, suggest the concept of gender. The circle encompassing the figure reinforces the idea of connectedness despite duality, suggesting the idea of two-spirited.





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THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE - NEW YORK (BMX-NY) was founded in Harlem in 2002 and is a gathering for same gender loving (SGL) and bisexual Black men to powerfully and respectfully address issues that impact their lives, and to connect with one another in a positive, affirming, nurturing and transformational environment. Ages 18 and up.

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THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE (BMX) was founded in 1989 by activist, writer and behavioral health expert Cleo Manago, as an instrument of healing and empowerment for same gender loving (SGL) and bisexual African descended men. The mission of the Black Men's Xchange (BMX) is to affirm, heal, educate, unify and promote well-being and critical thinking among Black people - 18 and up - diverse in sexuality, class, culture and philosophy.  Black Men's Xchange (BMX) conducts activities that promote healthy self-concept, sexual health, constructive decision making, and cultural affirmation among same-gender-loving (SGL), bisexual and heterosexual Black populations. BMX affirms and educates Black men (and the community at-large) while providing tools for self-determination, community responsibility, self-actualization and the prevention of health threats (e.g. HIV, isolation, substance and other addictions, and mental instability). BMX creates an environment that advances Black culture and involves identifying and unlearning ingrained anti-homosexual and anti-black male and female conditioning.

 

BMX is built on a philosophy that embraces same gender loving experience as intrinsic to everyday Black life.  Integral to BMX's approach is the understanding that, in order to decrease internal and external anti-homosexual thinking, and demystify differences around diverse ways of living and loving Black people must engage in supportive dialogue with each other and the community.

 

At BMX we believe that self-determination is crucial in achieving success toward healing and empowerment.  We understand that our cultural and experiential uniqueness requires a uniquely focused and precise approach.  Affirming strategies born out of our own experience is powerful; hence, the adoption of the terms, Black, African American and Same Gender Loving (SGL).

 

The Term Same Gender Loving (SGL)... 

 

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The Black Men's Xchange-New York And Our Allies At The Millions More Movement (MMM) In Washington, DC
(October 15th, 2005) 
 
 

 

 





 
 

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