Claude McKay (September 15, 1889^[1] – May 22, 1948) was a Jamaican writer and communist. He was part of the Harlem Renaissance and wrote three novels: Home to Harlem (1928), a best-seller which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo (1929), and Banana Bottom (1933). McKay also authored a collection of short stories, Gingertown (1932), and two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home (1937) and Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940). His book of poetry, Harlem Shadows (1922) was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance. His book of collected poems, Selected Poems (1953), was published posthumously. is the 258th day of the year (259th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 142nd day of the year (143rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... For music albums named Autobiography, see Greek eauton = self, bios = life and graphein = write) is a form of biography, the writing of a life story. ...

Early life

Born in James Hill^[2], Clarendon, Jamaica, McKay was the youngest in the family. His father, Thomas McKay was a peasant, but had enough property to qualify to vote. Claude came to the attention of Walter Jekyll who helped him publish his first book of poems, Songs of Jamaica, in 1912. These were the first poems published in Jamaican Creole. James J. Hill (September 16, 1838 – May 29, 1916), was a noted American railroad tycoon. ... Clarendon is said to be the third largest parish in Jamaica. ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Jamaican Creole, also known locally as Patois/(Patwa) or simply Jamaican, is an English/African-based language --not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English-- used primarily on the island of Jamaica. ...

McKay's next volume, Constab Ballads came out the same year and were based on his experience as a police officer in Jamaica. He also left for the USA that year going to Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute. McKay was shocked by the intense racism he encountered in Charleston, South Carolina. Many public facilities were not available to Black people. Disliking the "semi-military, machinelike existence there", Claude quickly left to study at Kansas State University. His political involvement dates from these days. He also read W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk which had a major impact on McKay. Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author and leader of the African American community. ... There is also the Tuskegee Airmen, a corps of African-American military pilots trained there during World War II Tuskegee University is an American institution of higher learning located in Tuskegee, Alabama. ... Racism is the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior or inferior to members of other races. ... Nickname: Motto: Aedes Mores Juraque Curat (She cares for her temples, customs, and rights) Location of Charleston in South Carolina. ... Official language(s) English Capital Charleston(1670-1789) Columbia(1790-present) Largest city Columbia Largest metro area Columbia Area  Ranked 40th  - Total 34,726 sq mi (82,965 km²)  - Width 200 miles (320 km)  - Length 260 miles (420 km)  - % water 6  - Latitude 32° 2′ N to 35° 13′ N  - Longitude... This article is about the color. ... Kansas State University, officially called Kansas State University of Fashion and Design [2] but commonly shortened to K-State, is an institution of higher learning located in Manhattan, Kansas, in the United States. ... William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced ) (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. ...

Despite doing well in exams, in 1914 McKay decided he did not want to be an agronomist and went to New York where he married his childhood sweetheart Eulalie Lewars. However, she grew weary of life in New York and returned to Jamaica in six months. Many scholars have since written about McKay life in Harlem as a member of the gay literary elite. Year 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Agricultural science (also called agronomy) is a broad multidisciplinary field that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic, and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. ... “NY” redirects here. ...

A Career Develops

It was several years before Mr. McKay had two poems published in 1917 in Seven Arts under the pseudonym Eli Edwards. However McKay continued to work as a waiter on the railways. In 1919 he met Crystal and Max Eastman who produced The Liberator (where McKay would serve as Co-Executive Editor until 1922). It was here that Claude published one of his most famous poems If We Must Die during the "Red Summer", a period of intense racial violence against Black people in Anglo-American societies. This was amongst a page of his poetry which signaled the commencement of his life as a professional writer. 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar (see: 1917 Julian calendar). ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Crystal Eastman (June 25, 1881 - July 8, 1928) was a lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. ... Max Eastman in Moscow (1922) Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883–March 25, 1969) was a socialist American writer and patron of the Harlem Renaissance, later known for being an anti-leftist. ... The Liberator was a monthly magazine established by Max Eastman and his sister Crystal Eastman in 1918 to continue the work of The Masses, which was shut down by the wartime mailing regulations of the U.S. government. ... Red Summer is a term coined by the NAACP, describing a series of 25 or more race riots in the USA during the summer and fall of 1919. ...

McKay became involved with a group of Black radicals who were unhappy both with Marcus Garvey's nationalism and the middle class reformist NAACP. These included the African Caribbeans Cyril Briggs, Richard B. Moore and Wilfrid Domingo. They fought for Black self-determination within the context of socialist revolution. Together they founded the semi-secret revolutionary organisation, the African Blood Brotherhood. However McKay soon left for London, England. Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. ... The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is one of the oldest and most influential hate organizations in the United States. ... The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ... This article, image, template or category should belong in one or more categories. ... The African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) was a radical black liberation organization which developed ties to the Communist Party. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ...

Hubert Harrison had asked McKay to write for Garvey's Negro World, but only a few copies of the paper have survived from this period, none of which contain any articles by McKay. McKay used to frequent a soldier's club in Drury Lane and the International Socialist Club in Shoreditch. It was during this period that McKay's commitment to socialism deepened and he read Marx assiduously. At the International Socialist Club McKay met Saklatvala, A. J. Cook, Guy Aldred, Jack Tanner, Arthur McManus, William Gallacher, Sylvia Pankhurst and George Lansbury. He was soon invited to write for the Workers' Dreadnought. Hubert Henry Harrison (1883-1927) Born Saint Croix V.I. This self-taught and widely hailed Harlem intellectual was editor in 1920 of the Negro World published by Marcus Garvey. ... Weekly newspaper published by Marcus Mosiah Garvey during the 1920s and 30s. ... Drury Lane is a street in the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. ... Shoreditch Town Hall Shoreditch is a place in the London Borough of Hackney. ... Marx is a common German surname. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Arthur James Cook (1883 - 1931), known as A. J. Cook, was a British coal miner and trade union leader. ... Guy Aldred (November 5, 1886-October 17, 1963) was an English anarchist communist and a prominent member of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation (APCF). ... Arthur MacManus (1889 - 1927) was a Scottish trade unionist and socialist politician. ... William Gallacher was born in Paisley, Scotland, on December 25, 1881. ... Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (May 5, 1882 - September 27, 1960) was a campaigner in the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom, and a prominent left communist. ... George Lansbury (21 February 1859 – 7 May 1940) was a British politician, socialist, Christian pacifist and newspaper editor. ... Workers Dreadnought was a newspaper published by variously-named political parties led by Sylvia Pankhurst. ...

In 1920 the Daily Herald, a socialist paper published by George Lansbury, included a racist article written by E. D. Morel. Entitled 'Black Scourge in Europe: Sexual Horror Let Loose by France on the Rhine' it insinuated gross hypersexuality on African people in general, but Lansbury refused to print McKay's response to this racist slur. This response then appeared in Workers' Dreadnought. This started his regular involvement with Workers' Dreadnought and the Workers' Socialist Federation, a Council Communist group active in the East End and which had a majority of women involved in it at all levels of the organisation. He became a paid journalist for the paper; some people claim he was the first Black journalist in Britain. He attended the Communist Unity Conference which established the Communist Party of Great Britain. At this time he also had some of his poetry published in the Cambridge Magazine edited by C. K. Ogden. 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... The Daily Herald was a London newspaper. ... Racism is the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior or inferior to members of other races. ... Picture of E.D. Morel frontpage of Red Rubber 1906 Picture of Roger Casement Emile Vandervelde Edmund Dene Morel, originally Georges Eduard Pierre Achille Morel de Ville (July 10, 1873 – November 12, 1924) was a British journalist, author and socialist politician. ... The Workers Socialist Federation was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom, led by Sylvia Pankhurst. ... Council communism was a radical Left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. ... The East End of London, known locally as the East End, is an area, with no formal authority or boundaries, that spans a number of administative districts of London in England. ... The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist party in the United Kingdom. ... Charles Kay Ogden (June 1, 1889 - March 21, 1957) is a linguist and writer most prominently known as the author of a constructed language called Basic English. ...

When Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act for publishing articles "calculated and likely to cause sedition amongst His Majesty's forces, in the Navy, and among the civilian population," McKay had his rooms searched. He is likely to have been the author of "The Yellow peril and the Dockers" attributed to Leon Lopez, which was one of the articles cited by the government in its case against the Workers' Dreadnought. The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom in August 1914, during the early weeks of World War I. It gave the government wide-ranging powers during the war period, such as censorship and the power to requisition buildings or land needed for the war... Leon Lopez as Tank Top Leon Lopez (born ?, ?) is a British actor, best known for the role of Jerome Johnson in the British soap opera Brookside from 1998 to 2002, and currently stars in the television show Hollyoaks: In the City as Tank Top. Brookside, Jerome Johnson (1998-2002) Hollyoaks...

Home to Harlem and other works

In 1928 McKay published his most famous novel, Home to Harlem (1928), which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. The novel, which depicted street life in Harlem, would have a major impact on black intellectuals in the Caribbean, West Africa, and Europe.[1]

Despite this, the book drew fire from one of McKay's heroes, W.E.B. Du Bois. To Du Bois, the novel's frank depictions of sexuality and the nightlife in Harlem only appealed to the "prurient demand[s]" of white readers and publishers looking for portrayals of black "licentiousness." As Du Bois said, "Home to Harlem ... for the most part nauseates me, and after the dirtier parts of its filth I feel distinctly like taking a bath."[2] Modern critics now dismiss this criticism of Du Bois, who was more concerned with using art as propaganda in the struggle for African American political liberation than in the value of art to showcase the truth about the lives of black people.[3] This article or section needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ...

McKay's other novels were Banjo (1930), and Banana Bottom (1933). McKay also authored a collection of short stories, Gingertown (1932), and two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home (1937) and Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940). His book of collected poems, Selected Poems (1953), was published posthumously. For music albums named Autobiography, see Greek eauton = self, bios = life and graphein = write) is a form of biography, the writing of a life story. ...

Becoming disillusioned with communism, McKay embraced the social teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and was baptized. He died from a heart attack at the age of 59. “Catholic Church” redirects here. ... Acute myocardial infarction (AMI or MI), more commonly known as a heart attack, is a disease state that occurs when the blood supply to a part of the heart is interrupted. ...

See also

• African American literature

The Color Purple by Alice Walker African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. ...

Notes

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Claude McKay

• "If We Must Die"
• A selection of McKay's works from the English Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ...

References

• Lowney, J. "Haiti and Black Transnationalism: Remapping the Migrant Geography of Home to Harlem" African American Review, Fall, 2000.
• Groden, M., and Krieswirth, M. (Editors). "African-American Theory and Criticism" from the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism.
• James Winston (2003). "Becoming the People's Poet: Claude McKay's Jamaican Years, 1889–1912". Small Axe (13): 17–45. 

Tarry, Ellen. The Third Door: Autobiography of an American Negro Woman, Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The Univ. of Alabama Press, 1955.