Claude+McKay




Claude McKay

Sept 15, 1890 - May 22, 1948  Claude Mckay, a prominent poet, novelist, and journalist was born Festus Claudius McKay on September 15, 1890 in Sunny Ville, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica. McKay was the youngest of eleven children, and at a very young age he was sent to live with his brother, who was a schoolteacher, so he could receive the best education possible. Claude was an avid reader, and at the early age of ten he began to write poetry During 1906, Claude decided to enter a trade school, but it was destroyed by a earthquake and then he proceeded to become an apprentice to a carriage and cabinetmaker; a brief period in the constabulary followed. A year later in 1907, McKay was noticed by Walter Jekyll, an English gentleman residing in Jamaica who later became his mentor, who encouraged Claude to write dialect verse. Over time, Jekyll began to experiment and eventually set some of McKay’s verse to music. In 1912, McKay had immigrated to the United States and had established himself as a beginning poet,publishing two volumes of dialect verse, Songs of Jamaica (1912) and Constab Ballads (1912).  Having heard favorable reports of the work of Booker T. Washington, McKay enrolled at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama with the intention of studying agronomy; it was here that he first encountered the harsh realities of American racism, which would form the basis for much of his subsequent writing. He soon left Tuskegee for Kansas State College in Manhattan, Kansas. In 1914 a financial gift from Jekyll enabled him to move to New York, where he invested in a restaurant and married his childhood sweetheart, Eulalie Imelda Lewars. Neither venture lasted a year, and Lewars returned to Jamaica to give birth to their daughter. McKay was forced to take a series of menial jobs. He was finally able to publish two poems, "Invocation" and "The Harlem Dancer," under a pseudonym in 1917. McKay's talent as a lyric poet earned him recognition, particularly from Frank Harris, editor of Pearson's magazine, and Max Eastman, editor of //The Liberator//, a socialist journal; both became instrumental in McKay's early career. While being a socialist, Claude McKay eventually became an editor at //The Liberator//, in addition to writing numerous articles for a number of left-wing publications. During the Red Summer of 1919, a period of racial violence against blacks, McKay wrote one of his best-known poems, if not the best one ever, the sonnet, “If We Must Die”, an anthem of resistance later quoted by Winston Churchill during World War II. A few other remarkable sonnets written by McKay in regards of death and protest are “Baptism”, “The White House,” and “The Lynching”. During the Harlem Renaissance, many well-known poets indentified McKay as a very leading and motivating writer, even though he did not write in modern verse; such poets were Langston Hughes and Countéen Cullen.  Claude McKay's most motivating and most inspirational poem was the sonnet, "If We Must Die". This sonnet was written during the Red Summer of 1919, which was a period where racial violence thrived. The poem reads: //**If we must die, let it not be like hogs ** ////**<span style="display: block; font-size: 110%; color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: center;">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! ** //<span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: center;">**<span style="display: block; font-size: 110%; color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: center;">What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, ** //<span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: center;">**<span style="display: block; font-size: 110%; color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: center;"> Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! ** <span style="display: block; color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; text-align: left;"> <span style="color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> //<span style="color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">This poem is a response to fellow comrades to fight back. It is an outreach for McKay's fellow soldiers to take a stand, to refute the constant racial onslaught of the white population and to stand up for their rights. The most powerful statement in this sonnet is the last line which states, "Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!", which shows that despite the emotional and physical turmoil, African Americans are still standing up for their rights and are really fighting to the death, no matter what the outcome is. While being outnumbered, while being overpowered and outwitted, the blacks came together as one "And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!" (McKay). The sonnet also describes the pain and torment that occurred during the that summer. The lines, "Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot" (McKay) and "While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs" (McKay) show the viciousness and black-heartedness the whites had for African Americans, despite how prominent or successful they may be. The hatred expressed during the Red Summer of 1919 is depicted in the following photos.

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<span style="display: block; color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Between 1919 and 1921, Claude McKay lived in England where he was employed by the British socialist journal, //Workers' Drednought//. McKay published a variety of books during this time period including //Spring in New Hampshire//, //The Negroes in America//, and //Home to Harlem//. In 1930, Claude moved to Morocco, but he quickly returned in 1934 due to financial instability. In 1936, he was accepted into the Federal Writer's Project and he finished his autobiography, //A Long Way from Home//, in 1937. Mckay never returned to the home he left in 1912. He became a U.S. Citizen in 1940. High blood pressure and heart disease led to a steady physical decline, and in a move that surprised his friends, McKay abandoned his lifelong agnosticism and embraced Catholicism. In 1944 he left New York for Chicago, where he worked for the Catholic Youth Organization. He eventually succumbed to congestive heart failure in Chicago on May 22, 1948. His second autobiography, //My Green Hills of Jamaica//, was published posthumously in 1979.

The information stated above can be found at: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/life.htm

and

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/mckay.html

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! || <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">In 1919, Claude McKay wrote the poem, “If We Must Die.” as a message to other black citizens. During this time there were race riots going on throughout American Cities, mainly involving white Americans attaching black Americans. This poem is Claude McKay’s feelings on these events and his personal approach to the great ordeal he and other African Americans were going through. He calls for a change like many other reformers, but he puts his protest into this unique poem. Though there are no stanzas present in this poem, there are a series of end stops and caesuras. Examples of end stops would be the period after lot in the third line or the exclamation point after dead on the eighth line. On the contrary, caesuras make a stop in the middle of a line in a poem. Examples found in Claude McKay’s poem are the coma after die in the first line or the semicolon after vain in the seventh line. These punctuation marks provide a series of stops within the poem in order to emphasize and give a better meaning to what Claude McKay is writing. The rhyme scheme of this poem is different as compared to other works of poetry. The lack of stanzas and the length of the poem as a single stanza cause this difference. When written in letters, the rhyme scheme is A.B.A.B.C.D.C.D.E.F.E.F.G.G. Every word that comes at the end of a line has a matching, rhyming word. In addition, none of the pairs of rhyming end words The author, Claude McKay sounds inspiring and fierce within his poem, “If We Must Die.” He wants the black community to fight back against the white community that is attacking them. He uses repetition of the word die in order to give a morbid look on the outcome of the struggle. He has an unrealistic outlook on the situation, and knows that many will die for just one white man to stop. Claude McKay does not romanticize the battle that is occurring between blacks and whites, or the outcome that will result. He states that they will be fighting a losing battle, but that it will be worth it in the end because they will die with honor, and not in vain. <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Through the poem he seems to be a leader of the people looking for support to end the cruelty in the future. Information on where to find this poem in its original book __Reading About the World, Volume 2__ visit: [] <span style="color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="display: block; color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: center;"> <span style="color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">
 * If We Must Die By Claude McKay