Francis Locke Sr.
Francis Locke was born in 1722 in Ireland. He was the son of John and Elizabeth Locke. When he was still young, the family emigrated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania Colony, where Locke grew up. After his father died in 1744, his mother married John Brandon, who eventually moved the family to Anson County, North Carolina Colony. That area of the county was later split off as Rowan County, North Carolina.
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."