Influential Poems

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

​​​​​​​- Claude McKay

McKay’s most influential poem "If We Must Die" was published after the Red Summer of 1919, a summer full of race riots, lynchings, and general violence towards African Americans. McKay wrote "If We Must Die" as a call-to-action for the younger generation and it continues to inspire people today. Many relevant figures in the Civil Rights Movement recited "If We Must Die" to remind black people about their responsibility to fight back. Peter Noel, friend of Khallid Abdul Muhammad says, "The New Black Panther Party and founder of the Million Youth March [Muhammad], would begin the session by reciting Claude McKay's epic poem 'If We Must Die.' " (Noel, Peter). McKay's poem spoke to Muhammad and helped him find a call-to-action to follow. 

I hear the halting footsteps of a lass

In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall

Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass

To bend and barter at desire's call.

Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet

Go prowling through the night from street to street!

Through the long night until the silver break

Of day the little gray feet know no rest;

Through the lone night until the last snow-flake

Has dropped from heaven upon the earth's white breast,

The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet

Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street.

Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way

Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,

Has pushed the timid little feet of clay,

The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!

Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet

In Harlem wandering from street to street.

McKay’s poem "Harlem Shadows" was one of the first pieces of writing by a black person to be published by the mainstream media. In 1922 it was published by a magazine called The Liberator. This is an example of breaking barriers because McKay wrote an extremely vulnerable poem that was published by the mainstream media for everyone to see, not just black people living in Harlem. ​​​​​​​The poem explains the poverty in Harlem and how persecution follows African Americans wherever they go. He writes the poem with very descriptive language that creates a sorrowful message about the poverty and violence faced by black people in Harlem.