The Collected Articles of Claude McKay

By Claude McKay

Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay OJ (1890–1948) was a Jamaican-born American poet and writer famous for his central role in the Harlem Renaissance. After travelling to America to attend college, he came across W. E. B. Du Bois's "The Souls of Black Folk", which inspired in him an interest in politics. In 1914 he moved to New York City and five years later wrote his most famous work, "If We Must Die", a sonnet dealing with the spate of white-on-black race riots and lynchings that succeeded the First World War. McKay's political and literary endeavours eventually took him to Russia, where he collaborated on "The Negroes of America" (1923) and "Trial by Lynching" (1925), which explored American black-white racism from a Marxist class-conflict perspective. After coming to terms with the Authoritarianism of the Soviet Union, McKay left for Western Europe in 1923. This book contains a fantastic collection of McKay's most influential articles on race and politics, not to be missed by those with an interest in American history and global politics during the twentieth century. Contents include: "Claude Mckay by Robert Thomas Kerlin", "Socialism and the Negro”, "The Capitalist Way: Lettow-Vorbeck", "A Black Man Replies", "Review of First Principles of Working Class Education", "Communists and the Local Councils of Action", "The Revolution in Currency", "The Yellow Peril and the Dockers", "How Black Sees Green and Red", etc. Other notable works by this author include: "Gingertown" (1932), "A Long Way from Home" (1937) and "My Green Hills of Jamaica" (1979). Read & Co. Books are proudly publishing this brand new collection of classic articles, now complete with an introductory biography from Robert Thomas Kerlin's "Negro Poets and their Poems" (1923).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read & Co. Books
• Release date: Feb 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781528793155

Claude McKay

Claude McKay (1889—1948) was a Jamaican poet and novelist. Born in Sunny Ville, Jamaica, McKay was raised in a strict Baptist family alongside seven siblings. Sent to live with his brother Theo, a journalist, at the age of nine, McKay excelled in school while reading poetry in his free time. In 1912, he published his debut collection Songs of Jamaica, the first poems written in Jamaican Patois to appear in print. That same year, he moved to the United States to attend the Tuskegee Institute, though he eventually transferred to Kansas State University. Upon his arrival in the South, he was shocked by the racism and segregation experienced by Black Americans, which—combined with his reading of W. E. B. Du Bois’ work—inspired him to write political poems and to explore the principles of socialism. He moved to New York in 1914 without completing his degree, turning his efforts to publishing poems in The Seven Arts and later The Liberator, where he would serve as co-executive editor from 1919 to 1922. Over the next decade, he would devote himself to communism and black radicalism, joining the Industrial Workers of the World, opposing the efforts of Marcus Garvey and the NAACP, and travelling to Britain and Russia to meet with communists and write articles for various leftist publications. McKay, a bisexual man, was also a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, penning Harlem Shadows (1922), a successful collection of poems, and Home to Harlem (1928), an award-winning novel exploring Harlem’s legendary nightlife.

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THE

COLLECTED ARTICLES

OF CLAUDE MCKAY

By

CLAUDE MCKAY

Copyright © 2021 Read & Co. Books

This edition is published by Read & Co. Books,

an imprint of Read & Co.

This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any

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Contents

CLAUDE MCKAY

By Robert Thomas Kerlin

SOCIALISM AND THE NEGRO

THE CAPITALIST WAY: LETTOW-VORBECK

A BLACK MAN REPLIES

REVIEW OF FIRST PRINCIPLES OF WORKING CLASS EDUCATION

COMMUNISTS AND THE LOCAL COUNCILS OF ACTION

THE REVOLUTION IN CURRENCY

THE YELLOW PERIL AND THE DOCKERS

HOW BLACK SEES GREEN AND RED

CLAUDE MCKAY

By Robert Thomas Kerlin

An English subject, being born and growing to manhood in Jamaica, Claude McKay, a pure blood , was first discovered as a poet by English critics. In Jamaica, as early as 1911, when he was but twenty-two years of age, his Constab Ballads, in Negro dialect, was published. Even in so broken a tongue this book revealed a poet—on the constabulary force of Jamaica. In 1920 his first book of poems in literary English, Spring in New Hampshire, came out in England, with a Preface by Mr. I. A. Richards, of Cambridge, England.

Meanwhile, shortly after the publication of his first book, he had come to the United States.

Here he has worked at various occupations, has taken courses in Agriculture and English in the Kansas State College, and has thus become acquainted with life in the States. He is now on the editorial staff of the Liberator, New York.

There has been no poet of his race who has more poignantly felt and more artistically expressed the life of the American Negro. His poetry is a most noteworthy contribution to literature.

From Spring in New Hampshire I am privileged to take a number of poems which will follow without comment:

SPRING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

Too green the springing April grass,

Too blue the silver-speckled sky,

For me to linger here, alas,

While happy winds go laughing by,

Wasting the golden hours indoors,

Washing windows and scrubbing floors.

Too wonderful the April night,

Too faintly sweet the first May flowers,

The stars too gloriously bright,

For me to spend the evening hours,

When fields are fresh and streams are leaping,

Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.

THE LYNCHING

His spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.

His Father, by the crudest way of pain,

Had bidden him to his bosom once again;

The awful sin remained still unforgiven:

All night a bright and solitary star

(Perchance the one that ever guided him,

Yet gave him up at last to Fate’s wild whim)

Hung pitifully o’er the swinging char.

Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view

The ghastly body swaying in the sun:

The women thronged to look, but never a one

Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue,

And little lads, lynchers that were to be,

Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.

THE HARLEM DANCER

Applauding youths laughed with young