Claude McKay

for sort of the all the burgeoning writers on the Harlem Renaissance, the kind of household names we have today.

Langston Hughes, Gene Toomer, County Cullen, Claude McKay.

All

of them.

There's more, you know, ethnomusicology, centering ethnography, talking to people, you know, engaging in oral histories, the voices of people, so that there's not a speaking for, you know, and there's not necessarily...

So, for example, I remember discussing, I think we were, I was reading a book about, it was a discussion about Claude McKay.

But really, using him to draw conclusions about all Jamaican people in a particular time period, that to me, that's not intellectually honest.

So again, kind of getting away from that, I hope that my practice will make an impact and intervention in that kind of approach.

to moments when you feel the valiant souls of those we're watching.

Few things are more stirring than seeing activist Richard B. Moore, who initially comes off a bit cold, spontaneously recite by heart Claude McKay's sonnet, If We Must Die, a poem that ends, like men will face the murderous, cowardly pack, pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back.

Early in the film, we hear from Regina Andrews, a librarian who helped encourage and promote the Harlem Renaissance.

She says of that legendary time, It was hard not to be caught up.

James Weldon Johnson described the debut of these plays as a highly important event in the history of the theater.

Another significant moment occurred in 1919, when the poet Claude McKay published a political sonnet titled, If We Must Die.

This work introduced a more assertive tone to the themes of cultural heritage and urban life.

McKay had moved to the USA from Jamaica, and his poetry began to appear in print shortly after his arrival.

Langston Hughes noted that it gave artists the courage to express themselves without fear.

The anthology titled The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke, is considered a foundational text of this revolution.

It featured a wide range of authors, including well-known figures like Zora Neale Hurston and Claude McKay, as well as poets like Anne Spencer.

Many of the poets involved in the movement began to incorporate elements of their culture into their writing, which led to the development of jazz poetry.

Yeah, I think it's interesting that the, uh, women played a, um, a, a role in bringing folks together, and the men did not do that, you know? They, they s- I don't have any, um, uh...

Well, the only thing, uh, was that Regina says that she and Ethel Ray used to go by Claude McKay's, um, apartment up the street-

I remember, yes

... and, uh, and could, um, uh, uh, it, she says they were a sounding board, you know, for the artists of the time.