Claude Festus McKay was a Native of Jamaica West Indies. He was born in the parish of Clarendon on September 15, 1890. At the tender age of seven years old he was “adopted” by his brother Uriah Theodore an educator. Under the guidance of his brother, Claude McKay was educated. As a youth he became interested in writing poetry. During 1907 he became acquainted with British folklorist Walter Jekyll who was living in Jamaica. The two became later became long standing friends. Jekyll encourage McKay to compose poetry deeply rooted in the island folk’s culture. In 1912 Jekyll assisted McKay to publish his first two poems, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads. Constab Ballads was base on his personal experience as a police officer in the Jamaica Constabulary Force in 1911.
In order to pursue his poetic career Claude McKay came to the United States in August 1912. He went to Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State College to study agriculture. However, in 1914 he gave up his studies in farming and went to New York. During the period of 1914 and 1919, Claude McKay became deeply connected with political and literary radicals. He joined the International Workers of the World in 1919. McKay was a close companion of many African Caribbean Socialists, including the likes of Hubert H. Harrison, Richard B.Moore and Cyril Briggs. Claude was also a member of the African Blood Brotherhood. His association with Max and Crystal Eastman, editors of the Liberator led to the publishing of his poem, “If We Must Die”, in the July 1919 issue of the Liberator.
Claude McKay later went to England. He wrote for British Socialist Sylvia Pankhurst’s Workers’ Dreadnought. In 1920 he published “Spring in New Hampshire”, a third volume of his poems. In 1921 McKay returned to the United States. He assumed the responsibility of coeditor for the Liberator, but later resigned the position in July1922. Claude released his fourth collections of poems, Harlem Shadows, in the spring of 1922.
Due to his discontent with left-wing effort to deal with racism in England and the United States, he went to the Soviet Union. He attended the Third Communist International in November 1922. McKay was accepted by the Russian public and gave lectures on art and politics.
McKay left Russia and traveled Europe and Africa. During his visit to France, he published “Home to Harlem” in 1928. This was Claude McKay most popular novel and is “studied within the context of the Harlem Renaissance”.
In 1937 McKay published his autobiography, “A Long Way From Home”. In 1940 he released Harlem: Negro Metropolis. He became a member of the Catholic faith in 1944.
McKay battle with poor health came on May 22, 1948 when he died in Chicago.
Bibliography
Kenneth Ramchand, The West Indian Novel and Its Background, 1970. Wayne F. Cooper, ed., The Passion of Claude McKay: Selected Poetry and Prose, 1912–1948, 1973.
Jean Wagner, Black Poets of the United States: From Paul Laurence Dunbar to Langston Hughes, 1973.
James Giles, Claude McKay, 1976.
Wayne F. Cooper, Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance, 1987.
Tyrone Tillery, Claude McKay: A Black Poet's Struggle for Identity, 1992
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I found your essay on Claude McKay very informative. It was interesting that his leftist political activism lead him to live in different countries, from the United States to England to the Soviet Union, Europe and Africa. The one common thread was that his poetry was embraced by all the varied cultures in which he lived, supporting the concept that poetry is a universal language. Even though McKay didn’t have a storybook ending, his efforts and work created new beginnings for African Americans in the arts.
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