Claude McKay

Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet and a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He is remembered for the sonnet "If We Must Die," written in 1919, and for novels including Home to Harlem (1928), Banjo (1929), and Banana Bottom (1933). Born in Jamaica, he moved to New York City in 1914, and his work also includes the short story collection Gingertown and Harlem: Negro Metropolis, a set of essays on the social and political history of Harlem. McKay died in 1948.