How Did Claude Mckay Influence The Harlem Renaissance

Claude Mckay, an African-American, was a rather large influence on the Harlem Renaissance, ever since he was a young adult he has been repelled by the bigotry between colored and white people, leading to the prompting of his emotional literature. He spent a good amount of time working on poems - expressing his side of discrimination - also fighting for what was right during the Harlem Renaissance.

During the 1920-1940 time period, The Harlem Renaissance was a large movement of flourishing poetry, arts, music and literature with themes including the role of African-Americans in the American society, African-American culture, slavery, racism and social equality. A great deal of artists originated from Jamaica and the Caribbean Islands, bringing their works to display. Claude Mckay was part of this renaissance, contributing his poems and volumes. This

renaissance originated in Harlem, New York, where a vast black population was settled. One of these men who greatly influenced Mckay was Marcus Garvey, a political leader who began worldwide campaign for black nationalism. Garvey was a valuable leader in a movement called Pan-Africanism. Mckay was inspired because, not only did he want to put his work out there, but he was disgusted by racism. Claude Mckay had been a part of firsthand racism, when he went to work in Kingston he experienced a great deal of this hatred because blacks were considered inferior. He was not used to the prejudice, he was repulsed by the discrimination so a year later returned to his hometown, Sunnyville.
Claude Mckay was born a farmer boy in Sunnyville Jamaica, son of Hannah Ann Elizabeth Edwards and Thomas Francis Mckay.

He came into this world on September 15, 1889. When he was younger and not yet in school, Mckay was studying under his eldest brother Uriah Mckay with his mentor Walter Jekyll. He learned everything from Science to Math to English. He had a special caring for English, Mckay would study poets such as John Milton, Alexander Pope and Arthur Schopenhauer. Jekyll started to notice Mckay’s peaked interest and advised him to start writing poems, Mckay wrote his first verses in Jamaican. At age seventeen, Mckay went to work as a woodworker in Brownstown. He studied here briefly before leaving to work in Kingston, where he left a year later due to racism. In London of 1912, Claude Mckay published his first volume, “Songs of Jamaica” and “Constab Ballads” with Jekyll’s advisement. These poems show different views of black life in Jamaica. After the publishing, he immigrated to South Carolina, then Alabama where he enrolled in Tuskegee Institute. Two months later he transferred to Kansas State

College.
From 1917-1919, Claude Mckay had attempted at owning his own Jamaican restaurant, his business desperately failed, this is when he decided to show the world his poems and journals. If Mckay had not failed at becoming a business manager, his poems might not have as such a large impact on the Harlem Renaissance. In the early 1900’s he went to London to further his works as a journalist and poet. His dreams came true when he became The Liberator, NYC - an American abolitionist newspaper in New York. He had a position in this job until 1922. This is when and where he published one of his more famous poems, “If We Must Die” which he wrote during the Red Summer of 1919. The Red Summer was in early Autumn of 1919, almost a thousand black deaths spread throughout the United States as an outcome of racial uproars. In most cases, Americans violently attacked African Americans, and most of the time they fought back. This lead to numerous deaths and sizeable damage in Chicago.
Claude Mckay was a very accomplished man, he has won many awards and praises for his works. In 1912, Mckay received a medal from Jamaican Institutes of Arts and Sciences (JIAS), this institute is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples Harmony Foundation Award. This medal was awarded to him for his two volumes of poetry, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads. In 1929, he received another award for his volume of poems named Harlem Shadows and Home to Harlem. Another literary award was given to him by James Weldon Johnson, a part of Harmon Gold Award for Literature, for his best-selling books Banjo and Banana Bottom. An accomplishment non-related to his poem works, Claude Mckay converted from communism to catholicism, went on many long retreats including pilgrimages from Jamaica to Moscow and Harlem to Marseilles.
In Claude Mckay’s life, he experienced extensive bigotry for his race and color. In Kingston, he was the target of racism and hatred towards African Americans. For him, this was life changing, he never experienced discrimination like this in Sunnyville, Jamaica. During the Red Summer of 1919, he decided he had enough, he wrote his poem “If We Must Die” to fight against the racist whites, and to have his race stand up for themselves no matter the cost. In his poem, “If We Must Die,” Mckay expresses the honor he wants to portray in his fight for equality by exclaiming “If we must die, let it not be like hogs / Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,” (1-2) He starts off his poem in a noble and strong voice, telling the audience that he will die in honor, not unjustly. He is standing up for his race as well as encouraging his kind to come fight with him. These lines show how fed up Mckay is with racism and inequality.
Claude Mckay’s poetry was his view on all racism in the world, he wrote poetry, journals, and books describing how he wanted to change the way blacks are viewed in society. In his early years Jekyll encouraged him to publish his volume in Jamaican, these poem books, Constab Ballads and Songs of Jamaica, were mostly about the bigotry in Kingston when he visited there. Before the Harlem Renaissance, Mckay used a pseudonym for his name, he published two of his works under Eli Edwards until a critic named Frank Hattis discovered his works and included them in Person’s Magazine. This shows that blacks were not accepted into society as working people, let alone expected to publish their works. He was both celebrated and criticized for his logical thoughts on understanding equality in a variety of communities.
Claude Mckay chose to use a variety of literary elements to portray the theme of honor and pride in fighting for what is right. Mckay lets the audience feel his emotion towards the subject of racism and inequality by incorporating form, rhythm and figurative language to depict the theme of standing up for the right thing. Mckay experienced firsthand hatred for being black all throughout his lifetime, in Kingston, and in the United States when he lived there.
Being alive for the Red Summer of 1919, Claude Mckay became revolted by the whites loathing blacks. He wants his race to stand up for themselves and die nobly, rather than die as a ‘hogs.’ Mckay refers to African Americans as hogs to show the injustices of how they are treated a killed, “While round us bark like mad and hungry dogs, / Making their mock at our accursèd lot.” (3-4) He uses figurative language to let the audience infer the hogs are African Americans and the mad, barking dogs are the whites. This illuminates the hatred that whites show because the African Americans are a different skin tone, not only are they swarming and blood thirsty, they mock them, as if they mean nothing. They sneer even though the blacks cannot do anything about changing their color. They are not ashamed to be colored, but cursed because it, unfortunately, they were born into a colored family, and colored people were seen as inferior. Mckay is attempting to bring the accursèd lot together to end racism, not matter the costs.
In Mckay’s poem “If We Must Die,” a main focus is form. This poem is a classic example of a sonnet, there are three quatrains, followed by a couplet. Throughout the poem, the author paints an image of fighting back for honor, “In vain; then even the monsters we defy / Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!” (8-9) Mckay portrays the want for a challenge for equality, when the fight is over the whites will be forced to let the blacks have privileges, the African Americans will be recognized and not treated like hogs, this is the speakers goal. This rhyme scheme is CD, tying into the sonnet form of AB rhyme.