Matthew Fielding Locke
After the war, Locke returned to Mississippi, and in 1849 married Elizabeth A. Biue. Shortly thereafter they moved to Upshur County, Texas. He established a plantation about 13 miles (21 km) northeast of present-day Gilmer and founded the nearby town of LaFayette (which he named after his son, LaFayette C. Locke, who was born in 1850). Locke began the first of two terms as a state representative in 1855 in the Sixth Texas Legislature. In the Seventh Legislature, Locke was elected Speaker of the House "pro tempore" on 26 December 1857 when Speaker William S. Taylor took ill. When Taylor resigned on 18 January 1858, Locke was elected Speaker over Reps. Isaac N. Dennis and John Henry Brown, 39 votes to 14 and 13, respectively.
Alain LeRoy Locke
Locke sustained his religious relationship to Christianity in the public eye and rarely openly supported his affiliation to the Bahá'í movement. Locke was a member of the Bahá'í Faith and declared his belief in Bahá'u'lláh in 1918. Due to the lack of an official enrollment system for the Bahá'í movement, the date in which Locke converted to Bahá'í faith is unverified. However, the National Bahá'í Archives discovered a "Bahá'í Historical Record" card that Locke completed in 1935 at the inquiry of a Bahá'í census from the National Spiritual Assembly. He was one of seven African American individuals from the Washington D.C. Bahá'í movement to complete the card. On the card, Locke wrote the year 1918 as the year he was accepted into Bahá'í religion and wrote Washington D.C. as the place he was accepted. This date suggests that Locke's conversion from Orthodox Christianity to Bahá'í faith was during the early 1920s. It was common to write to 'Abdu'l-Bahá to declare one's new faith, and Locke received a letter, or "tablet", from 'Abdu'l-Bahá in return. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá died in 1921, Locke enjoyed a close relationship with Shoghi Effendi, then head of the Bahá'í Faith. Shoghi Effendi is reported to have said to Locke, "People as you, Mr. Gregory, Dr. Esslemont and some other dear souls are as rare as diamond."