Claude McKay: Biography

Claude McKay was born on September 15, 1890 in Jamaica, West Indies. His name when he was born was Festus Claudius McKay. He was the youngest child. He was the son of Thomas Francis McKay and Hannah Ann Elizabeth Edwards. He started school when he was four but, when he turned seven he moved with his oldest brother so he could get the best education he possibly could that was available to him. His brothers name was Uriah Theodore and he was a school teacher. When he was with his brother, he became an avid reader of classic and British literature, also as well as philosophy, science and theology. He was 10 when he started writing poetry. He became an apprentice to a carriage and cabinet maker named or known as Old Brenga. He did that for about two years and while he was doing that he met a man named Walter Jekyll who, became a mentor and also an inspiration. When it came to writing Walter encouraged him to focus on his writing. Jekyll helped published McKays first book of poems, Songs of Jamaica in 1912, and these were his first poems published in Jamaican Patois (dialect from mainly English words and African structure). His next volume Constab Ballads came out the next year. That one was about him being a police officer and also his experiences as one in Jamaica. In 1912, he had come to the United States to attend Tuskegee Institute. He was there for a few months then he left and studied agriculture at Kansas State University. While he was there he read W.E.B.

Du Bois Souls of Black Folk, which had a major impact on his political involvement. He married his childhood sweetheart in New York. When he went out there a couple of years he created one of his most famous poems If We Must Die. He wrote during the Harlem Renaissance. He had written so many great works at that time. He wrote so many poems and stories and all that. He wrote on a variety of subjects. He also wrote about things that were going on with African Americans. When he moved back to Harlem, he turned his attention to the teaching of political and spiritual leaders of Harlem. In the earlier part of the twentieth century, he had set the tone for the Harlem Renaissance and gained deep respect of younger black poets of that time including Langston Hughes.

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