Knowra Claude McKay Claude McKay Claude McKay (1889–1948) was a Jamaican-American poet and novelist whose writing joined Jamaican folk traditions, modernist forms, and radical political themes. His work became a defining part of the Harlem Renaissance.
If We Must Die : A 1919 sonnet by Claude McKay that answers racial violence with a call for dignified resistance. Its forceful Shakespearean form made it a widely recognized response to racial attacks in 1919.
Jamaica : An island country in the Caribbean that became independent from British rule in 1962. McKay’s rural Jamaican childhood and colonial schooling informed his early poems and later sense of displacement.
James Weldon Johnson : An American writer, diplomat, and civil rights leader who edited and promoted African American literature. Johnson’s 1922 anthology included McKay’s poetry and helped establish his place in Black literary history.
Harlem Renaissance : A flourishing of African American literature, art, and music centered in Harlem during the 1920s and early 1930s. McKay’s poems and novels became central works in this cultural movement.
The White House (poem) : A Claude McKay poem about exclusion and the pain of being shut out of white spaces. Its controlled sonnet form turns racial exclusion into a personal and political grievance.
Patois : A language variety, especially a creole or regional vernacular, distinct from a standardized language. McKay used Jamaican dialect in early poems, bringing local speech into published literature.
W. E. B. Du Bois : An American sociologist, historian, and civil rights leader who helped found the NAACP. Du Bois’s magazine The Crisis published McKay’s influential poem “If We Must Die.”
New Negro Movement : A cultural and political movement asserting Black dignity, self-definition, and creative achievement in the early twentieth century. McKay’s writing contributed to its challenge to racial subordination and inherited stereotypes.
Home to Harlem : A 1928 novel by Claude McKay depicting Black urban life in Harlem after World War I. Its celebration of vernacular life and pleasure made it a landmark, and a source of debate, in Black literary culture.
Songs of Jamaica : Claude McKay’s 1912 poetry collection, written largely in Jamaican dialect and published in Jamaica. The collection established his literary career and drew on Jamaican speech and rural life.
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