Alain Locke’s Views on Racial Pride as Reflected in Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Paupaulekejo

This paper seeks to investigate the effect of Alain Locke’s race theory on Georgia Douglas Johnson’s play Paupaulekejo (1926). Alain Locke confirms that black drama should depend on past African sources to flourish through a new form of self-expressiveness and self-representation of the African Americans’ lives. This way of representing their lives in art and literature can boost their racial pride and solidarity, which in turn, would empower the African Americans in the United States. The argument is based on Locke’s aesthetic philosophy of art, though apolitically interpreted by many critics, acts as a strategic step to attain justice and to make political participation possible in the American society. Through semiotically analyzing Johnson’s play Paupaulekejo, Locke’s theory of race pride with a cosmopolitan recognition of universal equality is subtly highlighted. The semiotic analysis of the text will help in shedding light on the symbolic significance of characters, rituals, and place. Re-examining or attempting a new reading of the play uncovers Locke’s use of atavism and the appeal to the African materials which have affected Johnson’s play Paupaulekejo through “valorizing Africa” as a symbolic setting, highlighting the rituals of the African scene, defending the theme of mixed roots ancestry, and dismantling the stereotypical image of the Negro. Thus, the only way, according to Locke, to fight color prejudices and racism is to empower the African Americans through self-representation and the reversion to their African roots targeting the political participation of the blacks in the seemingly democratic America.