Festus Claudius McKay was perhaps the most radical of the young black writers who came to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Shaped by an attraction to genteel British culture, especially the romantic tradition, derived from his...

What is generally termed the Harlem Renaissance, a decade of black self-awareness and racial pride, is frequently dated from the appearance in print of Claude McKay 's great sonnet "If We Must Die," which commemorated the cataclysmic race riots in the...

Claude McKay's poetry and his life display the presence of conflicting forces: his sense of identity as a black man and his desire to write out of a traditional literary heritage. While his poem "If We Must Die" has been heralded as a primary motivator...

Once, on being asked his nationality, Claude McKay flippantly answered that he preferred to think of himself as an "internationalist." Though lightly given, the answer was not far off the mark. Born a British subject in Jamaica, McKay immigrated to the...

Claude McKay (1890-1948), Jamaican-born poet and novelist, is often called "the first voice of the Harlem renaissance." His verse and fiction are best known for protesting the social evils that plagued blacks. Claude McKay was born in Jamaica, British...