Today Mitch Jeserich is in conversation with Jeffrey C. Stewart, professor of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of the book The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke. In his book, professor Stewart offers a 
splendid biography of the enigmatic father of the Harlem Renaissance, Alain Leroy Locke, one of the greatest thinkers, teachers, and literary entrepreneurs of the early twenty century. The New Negro brings to life the intellectual brightness of the African American modernism in an era of cosmopolitanism, colonialism, and catastrophe. Shifting the discussion of race from politics and economics to the arts, Alain Leroy Locke helped establish the idea that Black urban communities could be crucibles of creativity.
Professor Stewart is also the author of Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen and 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African American History.