Alain Leroy Locke (September 13, 1886 – June 9, 1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. He was the first African American Rhodes Scholar in 1907. Locke was called the "godfather" of the Harlem Renaissance. As a result, popular listings of influential African-Americans have repeatedly included him. On March 19, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "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."