Edited by the first African American Rhodes Scholar, this landmark anthology of fiction, poetry, essays, drama, music, and illustration is widely regarded as the key text of the Harlem Renaissance. Exploring social, political, and artistic change, the works include Locke's titular tract, as well as contributions by Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, James Weldon Johnson, and other luminaries.

Alain Leroy Locke (1885–1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. Distinguished as the first African American Rhodes Scholar in 1907, Locke was the philosophical architect — the acknowledged "Dean" — of the Harlem Renaissance.

Foreword
Acknowledgments

Part I: The Negro Renaissance
The New Negro Alain Locke
Negro Art and America Albert C. Barnes
The Negro in American Literature William Stanley Braithwaite
Negro Youth Speaks Alain Locke

Fiction:
The City of Refuge Rudolph Fisher
Vestiges Rudolph Fisher
Fog John Matheus
Carma, from Cane Jean Toomer
Fern, from Cane Jean Toomer 
Spunk Zora Neale Hurston
Sahdji Bruce Nugent
The Palm Porch Eric Walrond

Poetry:
Poems Countee Cullen
Poems Claude McKay
Poems Jean Toomer
The Creation James Weldon Johnson
Poems Langston Hughes
Poems Georgia Douglas Johnson
Lady, Lady Anne Spencer
The Black Finger Angelina Grimke
Enchantment Lewis Alexander

Drama:
The Drama of Negro Life Montgomery Gregory
The Gift of Laughter Jessie Fauset
Compromise (A Folk Play) Willis Richardson

Music:
The Negro Spirituals Alain Locke
Negro Dancers Claude McKay
Jazz at Home J. A. Rogers
Jazzonia Langston Hughes
Nude Young Dancer Langston Hughes

The Negro Digs Up His Past Arthur A. Schomburg
American Negro Folk Literature Arthur Huff Fauset
T’appin Told by Cugo Lewis
B’rer Rabbit Fools Buzzard
Heritage Countee Cullen
The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts Alain Locke

Part II: The New Negro in a New World
The Negro Pioneers Paul U. Kellogg
The New Frontage on American Life Charles S. Johnson

The New Scene:
Harlem: The Culture Capital James Weldon Johnson
Howard: The National Negro University Kelly Miller
Hampton-Tuskegee: Missioners of the Masses Robert R. Moton
Durham: Capital of the Black Middle Class E. Fanklin Frazier
Gift of the Black Tropics W. A. Domingo

The Negro and the American Tradition:
The Negro’s Americanism Melville J. Herskovits 
The Paradox of Color Walter White
The Task of Negro Womanhood Elise Johnson McDougald

Worlds of Color:
The Negro Mind Reaches Out W. E. B. Du Bois

Bibliography
Who’s Who of the Contributors
A Select List of Negro-Americana and Africana
The Negro in Literature
Negro Drama
Negro Music: A Bibliography
A Selected List of Modern Music, Influenced by American Negro Themes or Idioms
Negro Folk Lore
The Negro Race Problems