https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Mackey.

jpg/
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Claude McKay

http://www.utoledo.edu/library/images/BlackHistoryImag
es/McKay%201.jpg
 Claude McKay
● Born on September 15, 1889
in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica
● Died May 22, 1948 in Chicago
Illinois
● Mckay was a poet
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/c
ooper.html

http://people.sunyulster.edu/voughth/ClaudeMcKay.jpg
 Early Years
● In Jamaica, Mckay incorporated
his African pride in poetry that he
would write. He was inspired by
british poetry
● Once his poetry got famous, he
moved to harlem New York
● Sent to boarding school for good
education as a kid

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/c https://commons.marymount.edu/oldengland/wp-content/uploa
ds/sites/791/2014/04/Claude_McKay-237x300.jpg
ooper.html
 Significance
● Claude McKay was a
Jamaican poet who wrote
novels and poems in
contribution to the Harlem
Renaissance and he was
widely recognized as an
exciting new voice in
Negro literature. https://books.google.com/books/about/Home_to_Harlem.html?id=V
rjmdP9KHRQC&source=kp_cover&hl=en
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/cooper.html
 Legacy
● Began writing his American poems first appeared in 1917, before the
Harlem Renaissance had begun. He is mostly recognized by his
poem, “If We Must Die.”
● He was one of the first African American people to express the spirit
of the “New Negro” during the Harlem Renaissance.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_
r/mckay/cooper.html

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/if-we-must-die