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Claude McKay Poet, Novelist


Claude McKay moved from his native Jamaica to the United States to study agriculture, but instead, cultivated a passion for poetry. 

Two collections of his poems came out in just two years: Songs of Jamaica appeared in 1911, followed by Constab Ballads in 1912.

Upon moving to New York in 1917, McKay fell in with a circle of politically active artists. In 1920, he began attending meetings for socialist Max Eastman’s avant-garde magazine, The Liberator. A year later, he was the publication’s coeditor.

McKay’s fiction was praised by some critics and panned by others. His novel Home to Harlem (1928), for example, told the story of a Black soldier’s homecoming after World War I. Although it depicted the underside of Harlem life, the book was embraced by the public and became the first novel by a Black writer to hit the best-seller lists. W. E. B. Du Bois and other standard bearers of the Talented Tenth, however, vilified its seamy portrayal of the Black urban existence.

Widespread lynchings of African Americans in the 1920s moved McKay to pen a series of political poems. His “If We Must Die” riveted the Black community, but scholar Alain Locke considered the poem too inflammatory to include in his New Negro anthology.

McKay eventually became disillusioned with Harlem’s literary and political scene. His early work had been strongly shaped by the ideas of W. E. B. Du Bois, yet McKay was disappointed by the man’s cold demeanor when he met him in person. He was also frustrated by Black editors, who he believed toned down his more incendiary poems and altered too many lines.

Angered and fed up with segregation—and unable to secure a guarantee that The Liberator would publish a minimum amount of work by Black writers—McKay decamped for the Soviet Union in 1922. He returned to Harlem in 1934 and published two works based on his life and career.

A logo banner that says “Drop Me Off in Harlem” in white font on top of a transparent image of the Cotton Club. The Cotton Club image is obscured by a soft mixture of green, yellow, and pink.

I n t e r s e c t i o n s

A black-and-white image of painter and illustrator Aaron Douglas.

Aaron Douglas illustrated the cover of McKay’s Home to Harlem.

A black-and-white photo of writer Langston Hughes wearing a brimmed hat.

Langston Hughes praised Home to Harlem.

A black-and-white photo of writer James Weldon Johnson.

James W. Johnson threw a party to raise money for McKay’s trip to the Soviet Union.

A black-and-write image of scholar, novelist, essayist, and editor W. E. B. Du Bois.

His work appeared in W. E. B. Du BoisCrisis.

A black-and-white photo of critic, philosopher, and educator Charlotte Mason.

Charlotte Mason provided him with financial support.

A black-and-white photo of the top of the Harlem YMCA building.

He lived briefly at YMCA’s Harlem branch.

harlem-line.jpg

“If We Must Die” by Claude McKay

A photo of poet and novelist Claude McKay as he smiles and looks off to the right. He wears a tan shirt with a white collar and is in front of a cream wallpaper with green and pink flowers and leaves.

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Listen: “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay

Courtesy of the Literary Representative for the Works of Claude McKay, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

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