Running Head: Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance
HUM 111
Assignment 2
Aaron F. Pitts
Strayer University
Professor: Lewis Wilkerson
01 June 2013

Running Head: Harlem Renaissance

Abstract
The following paper focuses on the two poets of the Harlem Renaissance Claude
McKay and James Weldon Johnson. Their role and importance within the literary movement is
identified, and the major themes of their poems, If We Must Die and The Prodigal Son are
highlighted.

Harlem Renaissance Poets

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned unofficially form 1919 to
the mid 1930s. The Negro Movement as it was then called, heralded the zenith of modern
African literature. Though it was centered around the Harlem, New York, many Afro-Caribbean
writers were also inspired by this movement to produce epic pieces of literature. In this paper we
concentrate on the great poetry that ebbed and flowed during this movement and most
particularly on two poets of the period: Claude McKay and James Weldon Johnson.

Running Head: Harlem Renaissance

One of the pioneers of the Harlem Renaissance Movement was the poet Claude McKay.
McKay was born in Jamaica and spent much of his early life there. His parents were prosperous
farmers with landed property and McKay lived a life of relative ease. It was only upon mving to
the States in 1912; McKay encountered intense public discrimination against blacks. The
segregation that was so much a part of the civil milieu put Claude McKay off the machine-like
existence that he transferred to Kansas State University. During his life here he was inspired to
produce some of the seminal works typifying the Harlem Renaissance.
McKays literary heritage spanned a generation where he produced stories of the peace
of peasant life in Jamaica, the travails of the honest black worker in America and a rage against
the American white authorities. Perhaps most known are, McKays reflection on the so-called
double consciousness of blacks which helped them survive in a society where racism was so
embedded in the civil consciousness. McKays seminal works express his contempt for the
rampant racism and bias blacks faced in society. Arthur D. Drayton, in his essay Claude
McKays Human Pity says: In seeing . . . the significance of the Negro for mankind as a whole,
he is at once protesting as a Negro and uttering a cry for the race of mankind as a member of that
race. His human pity was the foundation that made all this possible. (Claude McKay, n.d.).
James Weldon Johnson descries the Harlem Renaissance Movement as the flowering of
Negro literature. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson was no stranger to the inherent racial
bias that was the lot in life of an African American born in 1920s America. Weldon is popularly
held to be the Godfather of the movement; his aesthetic depth is often held to be the driving force
behind the cohesion of the Harlem Movement; his works The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored
Man and Gods Trombones brought to black literature fresh criteria of realism and artistry.

Running Head: Harlem Renaissance

According to Robert A. Bone, Johnson was the only true artist among the early Negro
novelists who managed to subordinate racial protest to artistic considerations (Beavers,
2000).
Johnson was a multifaceted personality. While some writers concentrated on only the literary
aspect of the Black movement, Johnson expanded his study to black theatre, music art and
poetry; that represented the innumerable facets of African culture and community. Johnson was
the Head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and
fought for removal of various obstacles (political, legal, and social) that encroached upon civil
rights of Black people (Beavers, 2000).
Both poets embodied the principle of double consciousness that was so vital to the
survival of the Black man in 1920s America. In the poem If We Must Die by Claude McKay,
the author presents a vision of the African American through the eyes of the racist White: If we
must die, let it not be like hogs/ Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, making their mock at
our accursed lot clearly demonstrate the white peoples attitude to the Black nation. The blacks
are a disdained and accursed lot. Their continuous struggle against the bias and racism they
endure in daily life to have a life little better than dogs. McKay says, What though before us
lies the open grave?, a feeling of doom and sheer hopelessness seems to embody this line:
McKay brilliantly proves the humiliating attitude of the world towards the Black nation
McKays poem We Must Die was set against the backdrop of the racial riots that took place
in major cities of the US in 1919. The media reporting was biased and the crackdown on Black
was brutal. The image of mad and hungry dogs (line 3) is almost a double personification,
where it embodies not lonely the doglike nature of the White people who brutalized the black

Running Head: Harlem Renaissance

inhabitants but also what they thought of those blacks: as dogs who could be subdued like
animals. The line If we must die is repeated throughout the poem, where McKay shows that an
ignominious end to the Back freedoms in America seems inevitable however he asks his people
to unite and stand firm: O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe! and show courage:
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave. The poet urges the back nation not to back
down: Like men well face the murderous, cowardly pack, /Pressed to the wall, dying, but
fighting back!
In The Prodigal Son, James Weldon Johnson typifies God as the father and his Son
embodies the young men of every generation. This personification of one image into two is that
of power and love of God who would accept anyone into His realm of faith, hope, and love:
But Jesus spoke in a parable, and he said:
A certain man had two sons.
Jesus didnt give this man a name,
But his name is God Almighty.
And Jesus didnt call these sons by name,
But every young man,
Everywhere,
Is one of these two sons

Running Head: Harlem Renaissance

The two poems outline the existing conflicts between the Black and White consciousness
and how the need for this conflict is not as essential as it is unnatural. The Prodigal Son
touches upon the theme of Gods all-embracing power, love, and all-forgiveness. Johnson shows
how the seven deadly sins, and human lust, for power of carnal gratification is destructive. A
moral and physical parable where Johnson shows that the vice is an all-corruptive force is the
City of Babylon. In both poems, man is shown to be on a rampage, espousing vice and sin and
destroying all in his path. God, on the contrary, is always helpful and wants to indicate the right
way leading to salvation, eternal calm, and happiness.
Thus, one should repent his/her sins and come to the Almighty Father:
Young man, come away from Babylon,
That hell-border city of Babylon.
Leave the dancing and gambling of Babylon,
The wine and whiskey of Babylon,
The hot-mouthed women of Babylon;
Fall down on your knees,
And say in your heart:
I will arise and go to my Father.

Running Head: Harlem Renaissance

References
Beavers, H. (2000, February). James Weldon Johnsons life and career. Modern American
Poetry. Retrieved from http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/johnson/life.htm
Claude McKay. Biography. (n. d.). Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/claude-mckay
Sayre, H. M. (2011). Humanities Culture, Continuity and Change. Vol. 2. Boston: Pearson
College Div., 2011

Running Head: Harlem Renaissance