Claude McKay had a moment when the light of the ancestors shined through him like a thousand suns. They had a clear message for us and Claude McKay translated it into a beautiful poem. That poem: If We Must Die is African Cultural Calendar’s poem of the month.
Claude McKay wrote this poem in response to what he was witnessing in the United States in (402 otd) 1919. A time when the barbaric white man was showing his true colors, burning down African neighborhood, lynching and castrating Africans all across that nation. Claude McKay answer to that was to say to us to fight back. But he did not live up to his promise. The voice of the ancestors did not live long in him. He was captured by the path of least resistance and instead of fighting for true freedom, he became an ardent socialist and integrationist. Though, today we recognize the poem “If We Must Die” for its clear message to us, we don’t honour Claude McKay, we do not call him a Beacon of the Way. He does not qualify to be held up to our children for having lived a life that is worthy of duplication.
The first time I heard a line from Claude McKay’s, If We Must Die, it wasn’t at a Black History Month event, it was in my Canadian history class in school. It was in a speech by Winston Churchill, he used the line “for their thousand blows, deal one death blow.” I had no clue that Winston Churchill was quoting a Black, writer and poet, who was born in Jamaica. The world recognizes the message in this poem, and they would claim it if they could, like Winston Churchill had done. The fact is, it’s a message written to us, which means we should all know that poem. The message in “If We Must Die” could only have one outcome if that is a people’s approach to their oppression: Independence. Race Independence like Marcus Garvey advocated. But Claude McKay never arrived at the idea of independence, he lost his way. It could be he lost his way because like so many creatives today, many of the creatives: writers, poets and artists, of the Harlem Renaissance depended on people who consider us their enemies for economic existence. Here again you could see what Marcus Garvey meant when he said, “A race that is solely dependent upon another for its economic existence sooner or later dies.” There will be times when the death charge is led by one of our own, often calling themselves socialist, integrationist or communist. Substituting one group of oppressive people for another.
By honouring the poem, we are honouring the light of the ancestors that shined through Claude McKay. “If We Must Die, let it not be like hogs.”