If We Must Die, Claude Mckay

Claude McKay (1890-1948) is a black Jamaican born poet who wrote during the Harlem Renaissance. This is a time immediately following WWI. Slavery had already been abolished and there was an abundance of racial tension. In 1919 McKay writes a poem “If We Must Die,” in which he expresses the anger he felt towards the racial situation of the time. By 1919 slavery had already been abolished but the white people treated blacks as if they were …

…whites that they have to realize that they are contradicting everything that they preach is morally right. McKay gave both audiences messages that insinuate the need for whites to establish equality and respect for the black community of 1919. He does not want blacks to accept the lifestyle that they are being forced to live, and he does not want white people to continue treating blacks as though they are part of an insignificant lower class.