CLAUDE MCKAY

Claude McKay From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search Claude McKay Mackey.jpg Born Festus Claudius McKay September 15, 1889 Clarendon Parish, JamaicaClaude McKay

Mackey.jpg Born Festus Claudius McKay September 15, 1889 Died May 22, 1948 (aged 58) Chicago, Illinois Occupation Writer, poet, journalist Education Kansas State College, Tuskegee Institute (now known as Tuskegee University) Period Harlem Renaissance Notable works Home to Harlem Notable awards Harmon Gold Award Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay (September 15, 1889[1] – May 22, 1948) was a Jamaican writer and poet, who was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote four novels: Home to Harlem (1928), a best-seller that won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo (1929), Banana Bottom (1933), and in 1941 a manuscript called Amiable With Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem which remained unpublished until 2017.[2] McKay also authored collections of poetry, a collection of short stories, Gingertown (1932), two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home (1937) and My Green Hills of Jamaica (published posthumously), and a non-fiction, socio-historical treatise entitled Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940). His 1922 poetry collection, Harlem Shadows, was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance. His Selected Poems was published posthumously, in 1953. McKay was attracted to communism in his early life, but he always asserted that he never became an official member of the Communist Party USA. However, some scholars dispute the claim that he was not a communist at that time, noting his close ties to active members, his attendance at communist-led events, and his months-long stay in the Soviet Union in 1922–23, which he wrote about very favorably.[3] He gradually became disillusioned with communism, however, and by the mid-1930s had begun to write negatively about it.[4] Contents 1 Early life in Jamaica 2 Career in the United States 3 In Europe and North Africa 4 Literary Movements and Traditions 4.1 Participation in Harlem Renaissance 5 Political Views and Social Activism 6 Sexuality 7 Works 8 Religion 9 Legacy 10 Awards 11 Selected bibliography 11.1 Poetry collections 11.2 Fiction 11.3 Non-fiction 12 Unknown manuscript 13 References 14 Further reading 15 External links Early life in Jamaica Festus Claudius McKay, known as Claude McKay, was born in Nairne Castle near James Hill in upper Clarendon Parish, Jamaica.[5] McKay referred to his home village as Sunny Ville, a name given to the area by locals.[6] He was the youngest child of Thomas Francis McKay and Hannah Ann Elizabeth Edwards, well-to-do farmers who had enough property to qualify to vote. His parents were also active and well-respected members of the Baptist faith. Thomas was a strict, religious man who struggled to develop close relationships with his children due to his serious nature. In contrast, Hannah had a warmth that allowed her to give love freely to all of her children. Thomas was of Ashanti descent, while Hannah traced her ancestry to Madagascar. Claude recounted that his father would often share stories of Ashanti customs with the family.[7] At the age of four, McKay went to school at Mt. Zion Church. Around the age of nine, he was sent to live with his oldest brother, Uriah Theodore, also known as U'Theo, a teacher, to be given a proper education. Due to his brother's influence, McKay became an avid reader of classical and British literature, as well as philosophy, science and theology.[8] At the age of 10, McKay started writing poetry. In 1906, McKay became apprenticed to a carriage and cabinet maker known as Old Brenga, maintaining his apprenticeship for about two years. During that time, in 1907, McKay met a man named Walter Jekyll, who became a mentor and an inspiration for him, who also encouraged him to concentrate on his writing. Jekyll convinced McKay to write in his native dialect, and then set some of McKay's verses to music. Jekyll helped McKay publish his first book of poems, Songs of Jamaica, in 1912. These were the first poems published in Jamaican Patois (dialect of mainly English words and African structure). McKay's next volume, Constab Ballads (1912), was based on his experiences of joining the constabulary for a brief period in 1911.[9][10] Claude McKay’s poem “The Tropics in New York” highlights his memory of the Caribbean.[11]The poem takes place in New York, where he worked as a labor worker. The fruits in New York causes the speaker of the poem to feel nostalgic. The poem describes the many caribbean fruits integrated into the New York “cityscape,” such as,“alligator pears, mangoes, and tangerines”. The color of the fruits remind him of the colors and the diversity in Jamaica. He incorporates figurative language in order to; explain his longing for old ways. For example, the speaker describes how he is “ hungry for old familiar ways/ a wave of longing through my body wept”. He reminiscences on his life back home in Jamaica, which explains why he identifies with the many fruits sold on the New York city streets.[citation needed] Career in the United States McKay left for the U.S. in 1912 to attend Tuskegee Institute. McKay was shocked by the intense racism he encountered when he arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, where many public facilities were segregated, which inspired him to write more poetry. At Tuskegee, he disliked the "semi-military, machine-like existence there" and quickly left to study at Kansas State University. At Kansas State, he read W. E. B. Du Bois' Souls of Black Folk, which had a major impact on him and stirred his political involvement. But despite superior academic performance, in 1914 McKay decided he did not want to be an agronomist and moved to New York City, where he married his childhood sweetheart Eulalie Lewars. Part of a series on Left communism Symbol of the International Communist Current Concepts[show] Movements[show] People[show] Organizations[show] Related topics[show] Communism portal vte McKay published two poems in 1917 in The Seven Arts under the pseudonym Eli Edwards while working as a waiter on the railways. In 1919, he met Crystal and Max Eastman, who produced The Liberator (where McKay would serve as co-executive editor until 1922).[12] It was here, as the co-editor of The Liberator, that he published one of his most famous poems, "If We Must Die", during the "Red Summer", a period of intense racial violence against black people in Anglo-American societies. The poem was reportedly later quoted by Winston Churchill during World War II.[13] It was during this period that Mckay joined the Industrial Workers of the World.[8] McKay became involved with a group of black radicals who were unhappy both with Marcus Garvey's nationalism and the middle-class reformist NAACP. These included other Caribbean writers such as Cyril Briggs, Richard B. Moore, and Wilfred Domingo. They fought for black self-determination within the context of socialist revolution. Together they founded the semi-secret revolutionary organization, the African Blood Brotherhood. Hubert Harrison had asked McKay to write for Garvey's Negro World, but only a few copies of the paper have survived from this period, none of which contain any articles by McKay. McKay soon left for London, England.[citation needed] In Europe and North Africa In London In 1919 McKay arrived in London, where he would frequently visit two clubs, one in Drury Lane, a soldier's club and the other in Shoreditch, the International Socialist Club. A militant atheist, he also joined the Rationalist Press Association. It was during this period that McKay's commitment to socialism deepened and he read Marx assiduously. At the International Socialist Club, McKay met Shapurji Saklatvala, A. J. Cook, Guy Aldred, Jack Tanner, Arthur McManus, William Gallacher, Sylvia Pankhurst and George Lansbury. He was soon invited to write for Workers' Dreadnought. In April 1920, the Daily Herald, a socialist paper published by George Lansbury, included a racist article written by E. D. Morel. Entitled "Black Scourge in Europe: Sexual Horror Let Loose by France on the Rhine", it insinuated gross hypersexuality on black people in general, but Lansbury refused to print McKay's response.[14] This response then appeared in Workers' Dreadnought. In response to the "Black Horror on the Rhine" stories that the Daily Herald were running, McKay wrote: "Why this obscene maniacal outburst about the sex vitality of black men in a proletarian paper?" Rape is rape; the colour of the skin doesn't make it different. Negroes are no more over-sexed than Caucasians; mulatto children in the West Indies and America were not the result of parthenogenesis. If Negro troops had syphilis, they contracted it from the white and yellow races. As for German women, in their economic plight they were selling themselves to anyone. I do not protest because I happen to be a Negro...I write because I feel that the ultimate result of your propaganda will be further strife and blood-spilling between whites and the many members of my race...who have been dumped down on the English docks since the ending of the European war...Bourbons of the United States will thank you, and the proletarian underworld of London will certainly gloat over the scoop of the Christian-Socialist pacifist Daily Herald.[15] Since January 1920, he had been involved with the Workers' Dreadnought and the Workers' Socialist Federation, a Council Communist group active in the East End and which had a majority of women involved in it at all levels of the organization. He became a paid journalist for the paper; some people claim he was the first black journalist in Britain. He attended the Communist Unity Conference that established the Communist Party of Great Britain. At this time he also had some of his poetry published in the Cambridge Magazine, edited by C. K. Ogden. When Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act for publishing articles "calculated and likely to cause sedition among His Majesty's forces, in the Navy, and among the civilian population," McKay had his rooms searched. He is likely to have been the author of "The Yellow Peril and the Dockers" attributed to "Leon Lopez", which was one of the articles cited by the government in its case against Workers' Dreadnought. In Russia McKay with Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin in 1923 When Russia was under the rule of communists led by Lenin he was invited to Russia during the reconstruction of the country.[16] In November 1922, in what he referred to as his "Magic Pilgrimage," he traveled to Russia with Max Eastman to take part in the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in Petrograd and Moscow.[17] McKay financed his trip to Russia by repackaging and selling Harlem Shadows, "complete with a signed photograph and an inflated price tag" to members of an NAACP donor list. He was greeted in Russia with an "ecstatic welcome" and "rock-star treatment." [18] In Africa McKay writes about his travels in Morocco in his autobiography A Long Way from Home. Literary Movements and Traditions Participation in Harlem Renaissance Claude McKay was a poet who flourished during the Harlem Renaissance, a major literary movement in the 1920s. During this time, McKay’s poems challenged white authority while celebrating Jamaican culture. He also wrote tales about the trials and tribulations of life as a black man in both Jamaica and America. McKay was not secretive about his hatred for racism[19] and felt that racist people were stupid and could not look past their shortsightedness and hatred.[20] In tales such as Home to Harlem,[21] McKay depicts a culture in Harlem that is full of drug use, prostitution, and a variety of sexual encounters. His depiction was criticized as a negative portrayal of Harlem and its lower-class citizens by prominent figures such as W. E. B. DuBois, but was later applauded as a literary force in the Harlem Renaissance.[22] McKay’s poetry brought awareness to the racist treatment that many black individuals faced. One of his works that challenges racial discrimination in the Harlem Renaissance is his poetry called “If we must die.” It looks to defend black rights and threatens for prejudice and abuse.[23] He wanted his people to fight with determination and courage to those who would murder them.[24] It calls to any race or anyone being discriminated against to fight for their freedom and what’s right. What influenced him to write this poem was the clash between white and African Americans.[25] Claude Mckay was afraid of the dangers that were happening all over the United States. The hangings, the shootings, the murders. He would go from town to town not knowing what to expect. Some nights he would stay indoors because of the fear of danger going on outside. The creation of this poem had pushed him to become one of the most influential spokesman that promoted radicalism in America. Claude McKay divested himself from many aspects and growing prescriptions of modernism. McKay paved a path of his own as a modernist in two ways. By the beginning of the 20th century, the sonnet form had become an antiquated poetic style, but McKay found it an ideal a medium to convey his ideas. Many modernists, however, rejected and criticized his use of the sonnet.[26] Despite their reaction, he persevered and created a significant number of modern sonnets. Having spent time amongst the artists of Paris in the 1920s, McKay was intimately acquainted with the dynamics between painters and models and the manner in which modernist painters presented African subjects and African culture. In her article, “Caribbean Models for Modernism in the Work of Claude McKay and Jean Rhys,” Leah Rosenberg writes, “The fascination with African art and its identification with female sexuality was characteristic of modernist and avant-garde primitivism”.[27] The inclination to stereotype and caricatures the African physical form created, however inadvertently, a form of hegemony reminiscent to McKay of the colonialism he grew up with in Jamaica. “Sexuality and black culture,” Rosenberg explains, “held a privileged place in modernist and avant-garde art from Picasso to Gertrude Stein”. In need of money, McKay posed nude for the Cubist painter Andre Lhote. Through his experience, McKay saw first-hand how the larger social hegemony between European white supremacy and people of Afro-Caribbean descent could play itself out between the artist and its subject. McKay critically recalled the experience in various ways in many of his most notable works. In doing so, he shined a critical light on a cornerstone of modernism and once again pushed back against a system in which he found himself. Political Views and Social Activism According to McKay’s autobiographies A Long Way From Home and My Green Hills of Jamaica, he claimed the black intellectual was drawn to the Communist party because it offered independence.[28][29] McKay believed that the Communists in the US had other things on their agenda, and the African Americans were not part of that at all. He also thought that they were using the Negro race to fight their battles. Because of his thoughts on communism in America, he sought out help from Russia. He addressed the Communists in Russia with his speech “Report on the Negro Question” and argued that America was not fully accepting of the Negro Communists.[30] After his speech, he was asked by the Communist Party in Russia to explore this idea more in the form of a book. He wrote Negry v Amerike in 1923. He wrote this in Russian, and it was not translated into English until 1979. Later in life, he came to the conclusion that the Communist Party suppressed the idea of individuality and independent thought.[citation needed][dubious – discuss] Before coming back to America, he denounced the Communist thoughts[citation needed][dubious – discuss] and looked for other areas to meet his needs. Sexuality It is widely assumed that McKay was bisexual, as he pursued relationships with both men and women throughout his life. He particularly enjoyed the simultaneous secrecy of New York City; he never officially “came out” nor explicitly stated his sexual preference, but he was able to enter the “clandestine” homosexual communities of New York and find acceptance within them. Despite never having confirmed his sexuality, homosexual sentiments are clear in several of his poems. In others, the gender of the speaker is not identified, which leaves to interpretation the nature of the relationships presented in said works.[31] Some key evidence that could support the idea of Claude Mckay being bisexual could be his relationship with Walter Jekyll.[32] Some say that it may have been a homosexual relationship between a younger man seduced by an older man. According to Josephine Herbst, she claims that he was bisexual and that she could personally attest that she received syphilis from him during their relationship. However, in his works, nothing provides key evidence to support this idea. During his life, Mckay was attracted to several men like Max Eastman from the Liberator, Frank Harris, who was an editor for Pearson’s Magazine, and Bishop Henry Sheil who worked for the Catholic Church. Walter Jekyll’s influence on Mckay resulted in a combination of social implications.[citation needed] Works In 1928, McKay published his most famous novel, Home to Harlem, which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. The novel, which depicted street life in Harlem, would have a major impact on black intellectuals in the Caribbean, West Africa, and Europe.[33] McKay's novel gained a substantial readership, especially with people who wanted to know more about the intense, and sometimes shocking, details of Harlem nightlife. His novel was an attempt to capture the energetic and intense spirit of the "uprooted black vagabonds." Home to Harlem was a work in which McKay looked among the common people for a distinctive black identity. Despite this, the book drew fire from one of McKay's contemporaries, W. E. B. Du Bois. To Du Bois, the novel's frank depictions of sexuality and the nightlife in Harlem only appealed to the "prurient demand[s]" of white readers and publishers looking for portrayals of black "licentiousness." As Du Bois said, "Home to Harlem ... for the most part nauseates me, and after the dirtier parts of its filth I feel distinctly like taking a bath."[33] Modern critics now dismiss this criticism from Du Bois, who was more concerned with using art as propaganda in the struggle for African-American political liberation than in the value of art to showcase the truth about the lives of black people.[34] McKay's other novels were Banjo (1929), and Banana Bottom (1933). Banjo was noted in part for its portrayal of how the French treated people from its sub-Saharan African colonies, as the novel centers on black seamen in Marseilles. Aimé Césaire stated that in Banjo, blacks were described truthfully and without "inhibition or prejudice". Banana Bottom was McKay's third novel. The book is said to follow a principal theme of a black individual in search of establishing a cultural identity in a white society. The book discusses underlying racial and cultural tensions. McKay also authored a collection of short stories, Gingertown (1932), two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home (1937) and My Green Hills of Jamaica (published posthumously in 1979), and a non-fiction, socio-historical treatise entitled Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940). His collection Selected Poems (1953) was published posthumously and included a Foreword by John Dewey. McKay became an American citizen in 1940. In 1943, before his death, one year before his conversion into Catholicism, McKay started "Cycle Manuscript", it was a collection of 44 poems, most of it being sonnets. In addition, McKay wrote a letter to Max Eastman, editor of the socialist journal The Liberator, Harlem Renaissance leader, and McKay's close friend, asking Eastman "to look through" all the poems and to make any needed "revisions". Despite Eastman's revisions, McKay's collection would never be published. The "Cycle Manuscript" remains to be a typescript at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, as the "Cycle Manuscript" is an important document that illustrates the reflections of an emotional poet who was seeking self-actualization at his point of his life.[35] Becoming disillusioned with communism, McKay embraced the social teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, to which he converted in 1944.[36] He died from a heart attack in Chicago at the age of 58 and is buried at Calvary Cemetery (Queens, New York).[37] Religion Toward the end of McKay's life, McKay embraced Catholicism, retreating from Communism entirely. His sudden conversion into Catholicism puzzled many for over half a century.[38] When McKay converted into Catholicism in his final years, he was perceived to be suffering from poverty, health problems, and political and social exclusion by his own beloved Harlem. Before his actual conversion, he wrote to long-time friend and mentor, Max Eastman, about "doing a lot of reading and research, especially on Catholic work among Negroes----Because if and when I take the step I want to be intellectually honest and sincere about it".(McKay to Eastman, June 1, 1944). Five months later, when McKay was baptized into the Holy Roman Catholic Church, he wrote to Eastman to assure him that "I am not less the fighter" for doing so (McKay to Eastman, October 16, 1944, Rpt. in Passion 305)".[39] Legacy In 1977, the government of Jamaica named Claude McKay the national poet and posthumously awarded him the Order of Jamaica for his contribution to literature.[40][41] In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Claude McKay on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[42] McKay is regarded as the "foremost left-wing black intellectual of his age" and his work heavily influenced a generation of black authors including James Baldwin and Richard Wright.[43] Awards Jamaican Institute of Arts and Sciences, Musgrave Medal, 1912,[44] for two volumes of poetry, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads. Harmon Foundation Award for distinguished literary achievement, NAACP, 1929, for Harlem Shadows and Home to Harlem. James Weldon Johnson Literary Guild Award, 1937. Order of Jamaica, 1977.[44] Selected bibliography Poetry collections Songs of Jamaica (1912) Constab Ballads (1912) Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems (1920) Harlem Shadows (1922) The Selected Poems of Claude McKay (1953) Complete Poems (2004) Fiction Home to Harlem (1928) Banjo (1929) Banana Bottom (1933) Gingertown (1932) Harlem Glory (1990) - but written 1940 Amiable with Big Teeth (2017) - but composed in 1941[45] Non-fiction A Long Way from Home (1937) My Green Hills of Jamaica (1979) Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940) Unknown manuscript A previously unknown manuscript of a 1941 novel by McKay was authenticated in 2012. The manuscript, Amiable With Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem, was discovered by Columbia graduate student Jean-Christophe Cloutier in the Samuel Roth Papers, a previously untouched university archive at Columbia University, in 2009. The novel centers on the ideas and events that animated Harlem on the cusp of World War II (such as Benito Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia). Working in collaboration, Professor Cloutier (now at the University of Pennsylvania) and his advisor Professor Brent Hayes Edwards successfully authenticated the manuscript, and have received permission from the McKay estate to publish the novel, a satire set in 1936, with an introduction about how it was found and its provenance verified.[2] References See James, Winston (2003), "Becoming the People's Poet: Claude McKay's Jamaican Years, 1889-1912," in Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, March 2003, No. 13, pp. 17-45; note 8. There has been much confusion over whether McKay was born in 1889 or 1890. His birth certificate lists 1889. McKay asserted that he was born in 1890 and, in a letter to Alain Locke, directly rejected the claim of 1889. Felicia R. Lee, "New Novel of Harlem Renaissance Is Found", The New York Times, September 14, 2012. Tyrone Tillery, Claude McKay: A Black Poet's Struggle for Identity. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992, pp. 64–65, 68–70. Wayne F. Cooper, Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance, Louisiana State University Press, 1987, pp. 294–295. James, Winston (2003-04-18). "Becoming the People's Poet: Claude McKay's Jamaican Years, 1889-1912". Small Axe. 7 (1): 17–45. doi:10.1353/smx.2003.0009. ISSN 1534-6714. McKay, Claude. “Boyhood in Jamaica.” Phylon (1940-1956), vol. 14, no. 2, 1953, pp. 134–145. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/271657. Tillery, Tyrone. Claude Mckay : A Black Poet's Struggle for Identity. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. Cooper, Wayne F. (1996-02-01). Claude McKay, Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance: A Biography. LSU Press. ISBN 9780807120743. Em (2004-02-26). "Biography, McKay's Jamaica Years, Still Further Continued". The Dialect Poetry of Claude McKay. Retrieved 2013-12-04. Freda Scott Giles, "Claude McKay's Life", Modern American Poetry. McKay, Claude (1992). "The Tropics in New York" from The New Negro. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 135. ISBN 0-684-83831-1. The Chicago Defender (National edition) (1921–1967); April 2, 1921; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Defender (1910-1975), p. 1. According to David Freeman ("Churchill quoted radical poet Claude McKay"; originally published in Finest Hour 125, Winter 2004-025) Archived 2013-02-18 at the Wayback Machine., while Churchill may have been familiar with McKay's words there is no documented evidence of him citing the poem in any speech. The Churchill Centre and Museum at the Churchill War Rooms, London. Donlon, Anne (2016). ""A Black Man Replies": Claude McKay's Challenge to the British Left". Lateral. 5 (1). Retrieved June 16, 2016. Reindeers, Robert "Racialism on the Left: E.D. Morel and the 'Black Horror on the Rhine'" pages 1-28 from International Review of Social History, Volume 13, 1968 page 17 Baldwin, Kate A. (2002). Beyond the Color Line and the Iron Curtain: Reading Encounters between Black and Red, 1922-1963. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. pp. 28–32. ISBN 978-0-8223-2976-3. "Communist International's Fourth Congress: revolutionary fulcrum of the modern world | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal". links.org.au. Retrieved 2017-08-18. teacher), Maxwell, William J. (College (1999). New Negro, old Left : African-American writing and Communism between the wars. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231114249. OCLC 40693272. "Claude McKay facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Claude McKay". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2017-08-18. "Claude McKay". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2018-01-26. McKay, Claude (1965). Home To Harlem. Pocket Books. "Haiti and Black Transnationalism: Remapping the Migrant Geography of …". archive.is. 2012-05-27. Archived from the original on 2012-05-27. Retrieved 2017-08-18. "Claude Mckay". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved May 24, 2018. Cooper, Wayne F. Claude Mckay, Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance: A Biography. pp. 122–123. "Mckay on "If We Must Die"". Modern American Poetry. Retrieved May 24, 2018. Platt, Len (2011). Modernism and Race. Cambridge University Press. Rosenberg, Leah. "Caribbean Models for Modernism in the Work of Claude McKay and Jean Rhys". Modernism/modernity. 11: 220. McKay, Claude (2007). A Long Way from Home. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813539683. McKay, Claude (1946). My Green Hills of Jamaica. University of Exeter Press. ISBN 9780859894579. McKay, Claude (1923). "Report on the Negro Question" (PDF). International Press Correspondence. 3: 16–17. Tuggle, Lindsay (2008). ""A Love So Fugitive and So Complete": Recovering the Queer Subtext of Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows" (PDF). The Space Between. IV:I: 63–81. Tillery, Tyrone. Claude Mckay: A Black Poet's Struggle For Identity. p. 12. "Haiti and Black Transnationalism: Remapping the Migrant Geography of Home to Harlem - Critical Essay | African American Review | Find Articles at BNET.com". Findarticles.com. Archived from the original on 2012-05-27. Retrieved 2013-12-04. "The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism". Press.jhu.edu. Retrieved 2013-12-04. Griffin, Barbara Jackson (Spring 1996). "The last word: Claude McKay's unpublished "Cycle Manuscript"". The last word: Claude McKay's unpublished "Cycle Manuscript". James, Winston (2001). A Fierce Hatred of Injustice: Claude McKay's Jamaica and His Poetry of Rebellion (London: Verso), p. 46. Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 29279). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition McKay, Claude. "Claude McKay". Biography. Retrieved 16 May 2017. Deshmukh, Madhuri (Winter 2014). "Claude Mckay's Road to Catholicism". Proquest. Retrieved 16 May 2017. Julie Buckner Armstrong, Amy Schmidt, eds. (2009). "Claude McKay". The Civil Rights Reader: American Literature from Jim Crow to Reconciliation. University of Georgia Press. p. 62. Retrieved 2013-12-04. "Jamaica National Heritage Trust". Jnht.com. 2007-02-19. Retrieved 2013-12-04. Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8. "Mckay, Claude (1890-1948)", from St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. 2005-2006 Thomson Gale. "McKay, Claude", in Brian Shaffer (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, Blackwell Publishing, 2011, p. 701. Jennifer Wilson, "A Forgotten Novel Reveals a Forgotten Harlem", The Atlantic, March 9, 2017. Further reading icon poetry portal biography portal flag Jamaica portal flag United States portal Cooper, Wayne F. (1987). Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Gosciak, Josh (2006). The Shadowed Country: Claude McKay and the Romance of the Victorians. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. James, Winston (2001). A Fierce Hatred of Injustice: Claude McKay's Jamaica and His Poetry of Rebellion. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1859847404. Müller, Timo (2013). "Postcolonial Pursuits in African American Studies: The Later Poems of Claude McKay." Postcolonial Studies Across the Disciplines. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 131-49. Tillery, Tyrone (1992). Claude McKay: A Black Poet's Struggle for Identity. University of Massachusetts Press. External links Wikiquote has quotations related to: Claude McKay Profile and poems of Claude McKay at the Poetry Foundation. Harlem Shadows: An Electronic Edition Full text of McKay's 1922 collection of poems (including "America", "December 1919", "Enslaved", "Harlem Shadows", "If We Must Die", "On Broadway", "Romance", "The Tropics in New York") as well as early reviews. Overview of the Claude McKay Collection held at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Works by or about Claude McKay at Internet Archive Works by Claude McKay at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) "Claude McKay and the New Negro of the 1920's" at the University of Illinois. FBI file on Claude McKay at the Internet Archive Authority control WorldCat Identities BIBSYS: 90372110 BNF: cb120526745 (data) GND: 118781081 ISNI: 0000 0001 0862 5951 LCCN: n79058991 SELIBR: 319235 SNAC: w61837fr SUDOC: 028756169 VIAF: 2489725 Categories: 1889 births1948 deathsAmerican people of Ashanti descentAmerican people of Ghanaian descentJamaican emigrants to the United StatesBisexual writersConverts to Roman CatholicismConverts to Roman Catholicism from atheism or agnosticism20th-century Jamaican novelistsJamaican male novelistsJamaican people of Ghanaian descent20th-century Jamaican poetsJamaican male poetsJamaican Roman CatholicsLGBT writers from JamaicaLGBT Roman CatholicsHarmon prize winnersJamaican MarxistsIndustrial Workers of the World membersPeople from Clarendon ParishAmerican Christian socialistsBisexual menLGBT African AmericansHarlem RenaissanceAmerican Roman CatholicsAfrican-American CatholicsMembers of the Order of JamaicaCatholic socialistsMembers of the Workers' Socialist FederationRecipients of the Musgrave MedalBurials at Calvary Cemetery (Queens, New York)20th-century male writers

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Sojourner Truth African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist, Sojourner Truth was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army and tried unsuccessfully, after the war, to secure federal land grants for former slaves. Sojourner died on November 26, 1883, at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan.

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African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York. She was one of the ten or twelve children born to James and Elizabeth Baumfree, Africans captured from the Gold Coast in modern-day Ghana. Isabella was sold several times in her youth, and married Thomas, picked out by her slave holder John Dumont in Ulster County, New York. Together they had five children. Her first, Diana (1815), was fathered by Robert, her true love from a neighboring farm, whose master, a Mr. Catlin, forbade the relationship; Thomas, who died shortly after birth, Peter (1821), Elizabeth (1825), and Sophia (ca. 1826) were all fathered by her husband Thomas. Beginning in 1799, New York had begun to legislate the abolition of slavery. Emancipation was finalized on July 4, 1827. Dumont, knowing this was to occur, had promised to grant Isabella her freedom on July 4th, 1826, "if she would do well and be faithful." On that date, however, he changed his mind: a hand injury had made her less productive, and Isabella remained long enough to spin 100 pounds of wool, satisfying her sense of obligation to Dumont. She then escaped with her infant daughter, Sophia, leaving behind her other children because a New York emancipation order did not permit their freedom until they had served as bound servants into their twenties. Isabella explained: "I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right." Students and Teachers of US History this is a video of Stanley and Christopher Klos presenting America's Four United Republics Curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. The December 2015 video was an impromptu capture by a member of the audience of Penn students, professors and guests that numbered about 200. - Click Here for more information Isabella was taken in by Isaac and Maria Van Wagener, who settled her remaining one year service account with Dumont for $20.00. One year later, New York law emancipated all slaves but Dumont had already sold Peter, Isabella's five year old child, into slavery in Alabama. Isabella sued in court, with the help of the Wageners, to recover her son. She became the first black woman, after several months of litigation, to win such a case against a white man. The National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA), the only alumni association comprised of former NBA, ABA, Harlem Globetrotter and WNBA players, is commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment – in conjunction with the University Honors Program at Loyola University New Orleans and ELEVATE, an academic, athletic and mentoring program for inner-city teens – by issuing a one-of-a-kind limited edition print of Martin Luther King's “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” signed by Dr. King and more than 50 former NBA players. This unique, historic, limited edition print is the perfect collectible for any history and/or sports fanatic. The 1000 special edition “Path to Freedom” prints are only available as a gift, limit one per patron, for tax-deductible donations of $100.00 or more placed at www.SpecialEdition.us Isabella became a devout Christian during her stay with the Van Wageners. In 1829, she accepted a housekeeper's job working for Elijah Pierson, a Christian Evangelist, and moved to New York with her son Peter. She remained with Pierson until 1832 when she accepted a job with "Prophet" Robert Matthews, another preacher. Shortly after her move, Elijah Pierson died, and Isabella, along with Matthews, was accused of theft and poisoning her former employer. They were acquitted and Robert Matthews moved west, leaving Isabella in New York. Isabella continued to work as a household servant after the acquittal. In 1843, believing that she received instructions from the Holy Spirit, she took the name "Sojourner Truth." She remarked to her friends: The Spirit calls me, and I must go." Sojourner became a Methodist and became a traveling preacher in honor of her new name. She joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry that was founded by abolitionists in 1844. The organization also supported women's rights and religious tolerance. While in Northampton, Massachusetts, Sojourner met Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and David Ruggles. After the group disbanded, she went to work as a housekeeper for George Benson, the brother-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison. In 1849, Sojourner included speeches on woman suffrage in her abolitionist engagements. In that same year, she started dictating her memoirs to Olive Gilbert. In 1850 William Lloyd Garrison privately published her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. The proceeds from the book, and subsequent speaking engagements, enabled her to purchase a home in Northampton. As her suffrage star rose, Sojourner was recruited to be featured speaker at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her most notable speech, Ain't I a Woman?, was given in Ohio at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention. In the 1850's, Sojourner spoke before hundreds of audiences. The Ohio Anti-Slavery Bugle championed her cause,enabling her to travel around that state speaking. She also spoke at a suffragist "mob convention" at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City. In 1853, she met Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote about her for the Atlantic Monthly. Stowe also wrote a new introduction to Truth's autobiography, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. In 1856, Sojourner traveled to Michigan to speak to a group called the Friends of Human Progress in Battle Creek. In 1858, during a speech, someone interrupted her, insisting that she was a man. Truth, who had been accused of this in the past, opened her blouse and revealed her breasts. During this period, Sojourner Truth moved to Michigan and joined a religious commune associated with the Friends. Later she associated with the Millerites, a religious Methodist movement that became the Seventh Day Adventists. Sojourner Truth, albumen silver print, circa 1870 from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. During the Civil War, Sojourner Truth helped recruit black troops while raising food and clothing contributions for Union Negro regiments. On October 29th, 1864, she met Abraham Lincoln at the White House. While in Washington, she challenged the discrimination that segregated street cars by riding to and from her work at Freedman's Hospital. On February 4, 1865, Harper's Weekly reported on Sojourner: "...But Freedman's Village has another and quite as powerful teacher in that well-known lecturess--Sojourner Truth. We found the veteran laborer for the slave in one of the little cottages, her hands in the flour...But Sojourner replied with energy that this was only a 'large Government poorhouse' She wanted 'her folks to be learning habits of economy, to be earning something, to become real Yankees.' we bought one of Sojourner's pictures...Some horse-cars labeled 'Colored persons not admitted' collect fares from far less sensible ones than honest, earnest, and God-worshiping Sojourner Truth." Cabinet Photo of President Abraham Lincoln showing Sojourner Truth the Bible presented by colored people of Baltimore, Executive Mansion, Washington, D.C., Oct. 29, 1864 which is part of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. After the war, Sojourner moved from Harmonia to Battle Creek. In the late 1860's she traveled all over the East Coast doing numerous speaking engagements. In 1870, Truth championed the rights of former slaves seeking to secure land grants from the federal government. She pursued this path for seven years--even meeting with President Ulysses S. Grant--but was unsuccessful. In 1872, she attempted to vote in the presidential election, but was turned away at the Battle Creek polling place. The following letter, dictated to her grandson William Still in Battle Creek on January 4, 1876, provides a brief narrative on Sojourner: A Pilgrim of God, Sojourner Truth believed herself to have been chosen to free her people from slavery. Her speeches, delivered in a bass voice which raised doubt in the minds of some concerning her sex, were so powerful, eloquent, and persuasive that she ranked only behind Frederick Douglas as the most effective anti-slavery orator. She had escaped from bondage as Isabella, and renamed herself to symbolize her wanderings and her message. Frequent efforts were made to silence her; she was stoned and beaten, Sojourner Truth continued on her mission with dignity. She knew all the major abolitionists, and was invited by Lincoln to the White House. At the end of her life she was impoverished. Her letter to Still of Underground Railroad fame stated that she hoped, while visiting the Centennial Exposition, to sell some of her books "to raise the mortgage off [her] house." She was unlettered, so her grandson wrote for her: "I am like a horse as no other doctor could cure me but a horse doctor." This was the tough old woman who wore across her chest on public platforms a satin banner with the words: "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto the inhabitants thereof." A year before Sojourner Truth passed away, the March 11, 1882, Harper's Weekly reported in an inconspicuous page three Personal column that: Sojourner Truth writes to us from Battle Creek, Michigan, in reference to recent published paragraphs of her having a fine home, and her having made a will, etc. She says she has made no will, owns no farm, but has a small house encumbered by a mortgage, and has no income but what she derives from the narrative of her life and sale of her photograph, which she hopes, and we hope, her friends will buy to help her along in this one-hundred-and-seventh year of her stay on earth. Sojourner died on November 26, 1883, at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan. THE WOMAN'S JOURNAL, Boston, Aug. 5, 1876 Rare women's suffrage paper founded in 1870, edited by Mary Livermore, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe. Published: "...to the interests of Woman, to her educational, industrial, legal & political Equality, & especially to her right of Suffrage". Among the articles are one on Sojourner Truth, which reflects upon her recent death; "Woman's Part in the American Future" "Woman Suffrage In N.E. Village" "Concerning Women" "The Miseries of Being Famous" "No Test For Suffrage" "Woman Suffrage In Colorado" "A Political Suffrage Party" "Suffrage in the Woman's Congress" Add caption Woman's Journal Article begins: Sojourner Truth, whose death has recently been announced and is now contradicted, is one of the most remarkable women of the age.She has been a slave in New York State, but emancipated fifty years ago. She has rare natural gifts; a clear intellect; a fine moral intuition and spirited insight, with much common sense. She could never read, and often said, that all the great trouble in the world came from those who could read, and not from those who could not, and that she was glad she never knew how to read. She took a deep and personal interest in the anti-slavery movement. Her speeches came with direct and terrible force, moving friend and foe alike. She was quick to see the weak point of the enemy, and also to hit. And when her side needed strengthening she knew just when and where to help. Sojourner Truth Biography Appletons Encyclopedia 1887 SOJOURNER TRUTH, lecturer, born in Ulster county, New York, about 1775; died in Battle Creek, Michigan, 26 November, 1883. Her parents were owned by Colonel Charles Ardinburgh, of Ulster county, and she was sold at the age of ten to John J. Dumont. Though she was emancipated by the act of New York which set at liberty in 1817 all slaves over the age of forty, she does not appear to have obtained her freedom until 1827, when she escaped and went to New York city. Subsequently she lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in 1851 began to lecture in western New York, accompanied by George Thompson, of England, and other Abolitionists, making her headquarters in Rochester, New York. Subsequently she traveled in various parts of the United States, lecturing on politics, temperance, and women's rights, and for the welfare of her race. She could neither read nor write, but, being nearly six feet in height and possessing a deep and powerful voice, she proved an effective lecturer. Original carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, three-quarter length portrait, standing, wearing spectacles, shawl, and peaked cap, right hand resting on cane. She carried with her a book that she called "The Book of Life." containing the autographs of many distinguished persons that were identified with the anti-slavery movement. Her name was Isabella, but she called herself "Sojourner," claiming to have heard this name whispered to her from the Lord. She added the appellation of "Truth" to signify that she should preach nothing but truth to all men. She spent much time in Washington, D. C., during the civil war, and passed her last years in Battle Creek, Michigan, where a small monument was erected near her grave, by subscription. -- "Narrative of Sojourner Truth, drawn from her ' Book of Life, ' with Memorial Chapter," by Mrs. Francis W. Titus (Battle Creek, 1884). FREDERICK DOUGLASS' PAPER Daguerreotype of Frederick Douglass Circa: 1847-52 by Samuel J. Miller (1822-1888) Rochester, New York June 15, 1855 But let us return to the meetings. We saw Sojourner Truth there; she made several ineffectual attempts to speak, but while we were there she did not get an opportunity. We were anxious to hear her, more, however, from curiosity than anything else, for it is the first time we have had the pleasure of “laying our eyes on her,” and we had a “woman's curiosity” to hear what she had to say, as we have so often heard that she has such a store of “mother wit.” She certainly did very well with her book, for the abolitionists bought it like fun, and that is the application of the anti-slavery doctrine that we need so much; let us have the pecuniary encouragement in which we show ourselves competent. A little pecuniary assistance is of more practical importance to us than ten thousand resolutions.

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