If+We+Must+Die

"[|If We Must Die] " by [|Claude McKay] James **(Jimmy Nightshade)**

Claude McKay was a Jamaican writer who lived in several places before moving to Harlem in 1934, and writing some of his best work. He wrote “If We Must Die” in 1919 during a time period called the “[|Red Summer],” when racism against blacks was hitting a violent level and mobs were attacking black communities all over. He is also wrote many other great poems, such as "The Barrier," Flower of Love, After the Winter, and The Lynching before his death in 1948.

If We Must Die

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 deathblow! 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!

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McKay wrote this calling black people to fight back even when they were against a mob. Many black people in neighborhoods around the U.S. were being beaten and killed by angry white mobs, and he felt that if you die fighting, you die with honor and your killer(s) will have to respect you because you stood up to them. The moral he's trying to get across is that a doomed resistance is still worth it to the people who would crush it and to the people who would observe it. This poem had a powerful impact then and still does now.

Bibliography "If We Must Die." Claude McKay http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/mckay.html

"Claude McKay." //Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia//. 20 May 2009, 18:02 UTC. 20 May 2009 <[]>.

"Red summer." //Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia//. 16 Jul 2005, 17:09 UTC. 20 May 2009 <[]>.