Defining the New Negro

Defining the New Negro requires one to understand the different social levels of the black community. The overall sentiment of the New Negro is a person who elevates racial pride in the dialogue of the community, as well as disrupts the racial hierarchy that enforces white hegemony. Alain Locke defines the New Negro as the artist, the person who observes what is happening in black communities and reflects on the changes in consciousness. Davarian Baldwin, on the other hand, defines the New Negro as the non-elite who undermines the white hegemony on the ground level. Although both scholars agree that the New Negro interrupts the racial hierarchy, they differ the New Negro's locality, occupation, and the role in making waves in the ocean of hegemony.

Davarian Baldwin describes the New Negro as a person who uses the "mass consumer marketplace as a crucial site of intellectual life" (Baldwin, 5). Baldwin considers Chicago as the haven for the New Negro, where black entrepreneurship thrives and strides towards racial uplift are derived. Chicago is a blossoming economic powerhouse, that fostered motivation for blacks to begin a collective movement towards excellency through the competitive racial narrative. The New Negro becomes inspired by the possibilities of success, and create an entrepreneurial culture in Chicago, where black businesses sprung up and provided black communities with commerce and economic power. New Negroes built self-sustaining businesses in Chicago, where the disposable incomes of other black people were invested in the separate black economy. "The overt desire for autonomous black cultural production through economic control, and specifically though consumer strategies, was arguably the most salient aspect of Chicago's New Negro consciousness" (7). Baldwin's emphasis on the entrepreneurial impact of the New Negro moves towards the idea of being autonomous from the rest of society, and use the marketplace as the means to get there. All types of people in the metropolis known as Chicago, varying from entrepreneurs to war veterans to laborers felt connected to the "symbiotic relationship between black producers and black consumers" (7).

Alain Locke's understanding of the New Negro is reactionary to Davarian Baldwin's. The works of art produced by Locke's New Negroes in Harlem responded to the prior sentiment that blacks were inferior to whites. The New Negro, according to Locke, created a literature, drama, and art for self determination, and freed themselves through the works they created. Instead of starting businesses like Baldwin's New Negroes in Chicago, the New Negroes in Harlem expressed the transformations and changes in the black spirit through artistic compositions. Locke emphasizes the intellectual competency of the artist, and their involvement in the Harlem Renaissance, which uplifted the New Negro in the artistic revolution. The artists were considered elite, and did not include the same kind of working people in Chicago; however, they reflected the same general ideology as their counterparts.

Through the artistic contributions of the New Negro in Harlem, black people could feel like they were elevating their place in society, and could indulge in the self respect and pride they always deserved. In Chicago, black people could engage in the same kind of self love through entrepreneurism and the independence they gain through making a separate, black marketplace. Although the class level and location differs between Locke and Baldwin's New Negroes, the core of their movement and transformation was consistent. Both worked towards creating a new and improved space for blacks, to feel self worth in a world that was constantly teaching them otherwise.