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What was the main idea in Alain Locke's essay (anthologized in a collection of the same title) "The New Negro"?

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Alain Locke's main idea in his essay "The New Negro" is that the Old Negro associated with plantation slavery and the bourgeois leadership of black intellectuals had been replaced in the early 20th century by the New Negro who was an ordinary working citizen who was reclaiming a voice and expressing participation in the broader community if America.

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