“The picture accompanying the A. Philip Randolph quote (6/25) is an echo of Claude McKay's poem," writes Steve Shapiro. "If We Must Die" was published in the July 1919 issue of The Liberator. McKay wrote the poem as a response to mob attacks by white Americans upon African-American communities during Red Summer. If we must die, let it be not 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! photo by Seymour Kattelson, courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Comments are closed.
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