If We Must Die

"If We Must Die" is a poem by Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay (1890–1948) published in the July 1919 issue of The Liberator magazine. McKay wrote the poem in response to mob attacks by white Americans upon African-American communities during the Red Summer. Although the poem does not specifically reference any group of people, it is reflecting the lynching nightmare black people were experiencing. It is considered one of McKay's most famous poems and was described by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks as one of the most famous poems of all time. “W. Churchill read it in a speech against the Nazis, and it was found on the body of an American soldier killed in action in 1944.”( J. H.Cone, 2011) It addresses the depth of Black people’s despair in the face of white people choosing to stay silent while lynching was still going on in northern riots.