"If We Must Die"

McKay, Claude. "If We Must Die." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 290-90. Print.

This short little poem goes a long way towards illustrating the feelings of many of the people involved in the Harlem Renaissance, especially with those of B.T. Washington. McKay, like Washington, is more interested in taking a stand as a group of proud Americans who, like their fellow white Americans, have just returned from war victorious for their country. He is obviously tired of being treated as a second class citizen whilst he and his brothers have gone off to fight, kill and die for their country just as hard as any man. Moreover, though, he is angry and bitter than his fellow black Americans seem to be willing to roll over and let the white society treat them as if they were “like hogs” (1). By using very literal language with purposefully transparent metaphors and similes, McKay tries to appeal to the black American society’s want of an uprising against their second-class treatment. He continuously reminds his fellows that “if [they] must die” (meaning if they must die in a war and if they must be defeated by society [die being used both as a metaphor of oppression and in the literal sense]) they should not do so without fighting to the end (1). The sentiment is extremely common in war literature – don’t give up without a fight!

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit depressingly, McKay admits that he feels that the black movement towards equality is ultimately impossible: “We’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, … dying, but fighting back!” (13-14). His intent isn’t the hopeful, perhaps impossible notion of absolute equality, but rather a statement of black pride. He doesn’t want his race to roll over and take it, so to speak, but to go down fighting. In his paraphrased words, what have [they] got to lose? (12). Death (again, metaphoric death as well as literal death) is an inevitability, and McKay realizes such. The saying has been recycled countless times in the history of war, my favorite being (oddly enough) from the movie Galaxy Quest: “Never give up; Never surrender!”