The Pennsylvania railroad offered a stark view of America in turmoil during the summer of 1919. Claude McKay, working as a dining car waiter, was so afraid that he carried a hidden revolver in his crisp white jacket. This turbulent period, known as the Red Summer, saw a surge of racial violence sweep the nation.
Across the Western world, hundreds of thousands of World War I veterans had returned home and were seeking employment. Among them were Black soldiers who had fought for the Allies, hoping their service would earn them equal rights. Instead, they faced bitter disappointment.
Competition for jobs and labor exposed deep-seated prejudices, sparking widespread riots and lynchings throughout the United States. From April to November 1919, hundreds of people—mostly Black Americans—were killed, and thousands more were injured. McKay, a 28-year-old Jamaican immigrant and budding poet, was deeply affected by the brutality. He later recalled, “It was the first time I had ever come face to face with such obvious, unyielding hatred of my race, and my feelings were beyond words. I had heard about prejudice in America, but I never imagined it could be so intensely bitter.”
This experience profoundly shaped his writing. Amid the Red Summer riots, he penned the powerful sonnet “If We Must Die.” Published in 1919 by the leftist magazine The Liberator, founded by Max and Crystal Eastman, the poem was hailed as “the Marseillaise of the American Negro.” Its closing lines, “Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack / Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” cemented McKay’s reputation as a literary voice. After being reprinted in prominent Black newspapers and magazines, he was celebrated as “a poet of his people.”
The publication of “If We Must Die” began a lifelong partnership with the Eastmans, who not only edited, published, and promoted his work but also provided financial support. However, the poem attracted unwanted scrutiny from the Justice Department, which investigated African American radicalism and deemed the verse incendiary.
By the end of the summer, McKay left his railroad job and started working in a Manhattan factory, where he joined the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union. Many believe pressure from the Justice Department prompted his decision to leave the U.S. in September 1919 for the UK, though McKay later cited a sponsored trip from literary admirers and a lifelong desire to visit his “true cultural homeland” as his reasons for going.
In England, McKay found that reality fell short of his idealized vision of “literary England.” He was dismayed to discover that racial violence had crossed the Atlantic. By autumn 1919, riots had erupted in London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Manchester, and Hull, resulting in five deaths, dozens injured, and at least 250 arrests. Further clashes in 1920 and 1921 were fueled by competition for jobs and housing, as well as white hostility toward interracial relationships. A Cardiff police report noted, “There can be no doubt that the aggressors have been those belonging to the white race.”
According to historian Jacqueline Jenkinson, the 1919 UK riots grew from the aftermath of war: “At a time of stress, when xenophobia had become almost a way of life after over four years of constant German and anti-alien propaganda, those deemed ‘foreign’ due to dark skin were seen as legitimate targets for postwar grievances.”
International seamen were drawn to Britain’s ports by the imperial trade in coal and other goods.By the late 19th century, author Stephen Bourne estimates that Britain’s non-white population was at least 10,000 out of a total of 45 million people. The largest communities were in port cities like London’s Docklands, Cardiff, Hull, and Liverpool. Their presence was certainly noticed. In Cardiff, just before World War I, a retired sea captain waged a long campaign against foreign-born sailors in his newspaper, the Maritime Review. One cartoon depicted John Bull—the symbol of England—hanging from a cliff edge, with a figure sporting wild hair and earrings clinging to his ankles. Bull says, “If I don’t kick this fellow off, I’m done for.”
During the war, these diverse communities expanded as seaports became home to Africans, West Indians, Indians, Chinese, Malaysians, and Arabs who had served on British ships. But after the war, competition for jobs led to discrimination—unions barred non-white sailors from working on British merchant ships—and riots broke out in the docks. These disturbances escalated into attacks on boarding houses and businesses owned by non-white residents. Economic conditions were severe: the cost of essentials like food and clothing tripled during the war. For those without work, non-white people became easy scapegoats.
Some of the worst violence occurred in Liverpool, where mobs grew to 10,000 people, forcing over 700 non-white individuals to seek police protection in Bridewell, the central jail. After a series of fights among sailors of various nationalities, the local Globe newspaper reported that a young Black man was pushed into the sea, and a crowd of white dockworkers “threw bricks at him until he sank for the last time.” The Liverpool Echo added that the victim was Charles Wootton, a Royal Navy serviceman. A police detective attempted to rescue him, but as he climbed down a ship’s rope, a stone thrown from the crowd hit Wootton on the head, and he disappeared beneath the water. No one was arrested.
A black man addressing a crowd in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay district during the 1919 race riots. Photograph: PD
McKay began to feel that conditions in England were as bad as those in the U.S. Struggling to find housing in London, he ended up in a “hideous little gutter street near the Angel.” Pubs often refused to serve him, and he faced regular verbal and even physical abuse.
McKay looked for a literary scene similar to the one he had left in Harlem and eventually discovered a club for non-white soldiers in London’s Drury Lane. There, he met “a few colored Americans, East Indians, and Egyptians” who shared stories of racism in the British army and on London’s streets during the Armistice. He enjoyed attending the rough-and-ready boxing matches held nearby and introduced his new friends to American publications like the Crisis, the Messenger, and the Negro World. Hubert Harrison, editor of the Negro World and an acquaintance from Harlem, asked McKay to write a series on life in London. McKay wrote about the soldiers’ club but angered its matron by describing her “patronizing white maternal attitude toward her colored charges.”
With Drury Lane now off-limits, McKay sought another sanctuary. Frank Harris, the Irish editor of Pearson’s Magazine, had given him several letters of introduction, including one to George Bernard Shaw. After a memorable evening at Shaw’s home in Adelphi Terrace, Shaw helped McKay obtain a reader’s ticket for the British Museum. Other letters led him to the International Socialist Club (ISC) in London, where he met fellow left-wing intellectuals like George Lansbury, editor of the Daily Herald. McKay found the ISC “full of excitement with its dogmatists and doctrinaires of radical left ideas: socialists, communists, anarchists, syndicalists, one-big-unionists, and trade unionists.”At that time, he met Sylvia Pankhurst by chance. She was the editor of the Workers’ Dreadnought, a major weekly publication for the radical progressive left, based in Bow in London’s East End. Pankhurst had launched the Dreadnought in March 1914. Originally called the Woman’s Dreadnought, the name highlighted her suffragette background. But in July 1917, she shifted the eight-page paper’s focus, changing the title to match its bold, radical content. Distributed throughout the East End, it reached 20,000 readers each week. The Dreadnought blended news, global analysis, personal stories from working-class life—whether soldiers or dockworkers—and a touch of poetry. It championed working-class and feminist perspectives at a time when such voices were rarely heard. “I wanted the paper to be as much as possible written from life,” Pankhurst once said. “Not dry arguments, but a vivid picture of reality, always moving from specific human experiences to broader principles.”
Sylvia Pankhurst was already aware of McKay. She was close friends with the Eastmans, founders of the Liberator in New York. In September 1919, a month before they met, she reprinted several of his poems—including “If We Must Die”—in the Dreadnought under the heading “A Negro Poet,” noting that McKay had written them while working as a dining car waiter.
McKay described Pankhurst as “a small, plain woman about the size of Queen Victoria, with a mass of long, unruly bronze hair… Her eyes were fiery, almost fanatical, yet with a sharp, shrewd glint… In the labor movement, she constantly challenged complacent and lazy leaders… And wherever imperialism oppressed native peoples, Pankhurst’s paper was there to report it.”
In a Dreadnought editorial published at the peak of the summer riots on June 7, 1919, titled “Stabbing Negroes in the London Dock Area,” Pankhurst posed “a few questions for those who have been hunting Negroes.” She asked: “Do you not realize that capitalists, especially British capitalists, have seized lands inhabited by black people by force and rule them for profit… Wouldn’t your time be better spent improving conditions for yourself and your fellow workers rather than stabbing a black man?”
Her words made a strong impression on McKay. In London, he became involved with Pankhurst’s Workers’ Socialist Federation (WSF), which held regular meetings and fundraisers. McKay noted that Pankhurst didn’t just talk about revolutionary Marxism—she lived it, working and residing alongside East End laborers. He called her a “skilled agitator and fighter” with the “charisma to draw people to the organization.” The two discovered they shared many beliefs. McKay was a vocal supporter of women’s rights and suffrage, a pacifist, and an agnostic. Despite their differences—the young, fresh-faced Jamaican and the seasoned suffragette—their partnership lasted.
In April 1920, Pankhurst offered McKay a full-time role as the paper’s labor correspondent, providing him with room and board. He eagerly accepted. One of his first assignments was to report on the tense situation at London’s docks, where he interviewed sailors of various backgrounds to understand their grievances. He covered strikes and union meetings and was also tasked with compiling articles from foreign publications, especially those critical of British policies.The British imperial project was a key focus for McKay. In his first cover essay for the newspaper, he contended that nationalist movements, especially among colonized peoples in Britain’s territories, would drive them toward communism. He wrote, “The British empire is the greatest barrier to international socialism, and any of its oppressed regions gaining independence would advance the cause of world communism.”
McKay was incredibly productive, publishing many essays, articles, book reviews, and some of his most defiant poems, often using fake names. He had started using pen names in the U.S., worried that his radical poetry could harm his job prospects. In Britain, he kept this practice, especially since Scotland Yard was monitoring the Workers’ Socialist Federation’s activities.
Through McKay’s contributions, the Dreadnought offered a Black viewpoint at a time when mainstream media often vilified people of color. After World War I, London-based newspapers catering to these communities, like the African Times and Orient Review, were quickly disappearing.
On April 6, 1920, French forces responded to Germany’s breach of the Versailles Treaty by occupying key cities on the Rhine’s east bank. About 2% of the 250,000 French troops in the Rhineland were from West Africa, but the presence of Black soldiers in a white European nation was met with disgust by some. During the occupation, French Moroccan soldiers—along with a large Senegalese contingent—fired on a German crowd protesting their presence in Frankfurt, killing several civilians. The Daily Herald was the only English paper to highlight the race of these troops, running a front-page headline on April 9: “Frankfurt runs with blood: French black troops use machine guns on civilians.”
The next day, the Herald featured a series of front-page articles by journalist E.D. Morel, framing the conflict in racial terms. Under the headline “Black Scourge in Europe: Sexual Horror Let Loose by France on the Rhine,” Morel accused Black troops, whom he called “primitive African barbarians,” of terrorizing the countryside and committing rape. He also claimed that syphilis was rampant where they were stationed, blaming their “barely restrainable bestiality.”
These reports caused worldwide outrage, with protests in London and Sweden demanding France withdraw its “savage” soldiers. In the U.S., anger grew so intense that President Woodrow Wilson ordered an investigation in June 1920. A subsequent report by diplomat E.L. Dresel found that most stories of “black horror” on the Rhine were false and commended the discipline of the Senegalese troops. Morel later admitted he had no proof for his allegations but continued to assert that the African race was sexually unrestrainable.
McKay was infuriated by Morel’s words and sent a letter to the Herald. Editor George Lansbury declined to publish it, citing space issues, but Sylvia Pankhurst printed it in the Dreadnought under the title “A Black Man Replies.” McKay questioned why a workers’ paper would focus so obsessively on Black men’s sexuality and challenged the claim that Black troops were more syphilitic, noting the disease was common among soldiers of all races. In closing, he linked such articles to the racial violence affecting British cities, stating, “I feel that the…”The ultimate outcome of your propaganda will be increased conflict and violence between white people and many in my community, who will face economic and social boycotts. In Limehouse, white men who should know better have warned me that this summer will see a resurgence of last year’s riots. The racist elites in the United States will applaud you, and the working-class underworld will surely revel in the sensationalism of the Christian-socialist pacifist Daily Herald.
Like his colleagues at the newspaper, McKay actively distributed the two-penny paper at workers’ rallies. During a Sinn Féin gathering in Trafalgar Square in the summer of 1920, he wore a green tie to sell the Dreadnought and Pankhurst’s pamphlet, Rebel Ireland, and was warmly greeted by Sinn Féin members as “Black Murphy” or “Black Irish.” British intelligence closely monitored his activities, having already noted his articles on Ireland in the Dreadnought.
Pankhurst placed significant trust in McKay at the paper, granting him considerable freedom in his reporting and allowing his radical poetry to go uncensored. When she was away on Women’s Suffrage Federation duties, McKay often stepped in as managing editor. In the autumn of 1920, he wrote to a friend, complaining of being overworked: “Sylvia Pankhurst has kept me incredibly busy since her return from abroad. Her unpredictable nature has led to various personal and professional challenges, leaving me to handle most of the routine tasks of publishing the paper.”
They sometimes disagreed. In the summer of 1920, McKay published a glowing profile of Robert Smillie, the charismatic leader of the miners’ federation, which Pankhurst criticized, reminding him that the Dreadnought’s policy was to critique, not praise, established labor leaders. She also blocked an article he wrote about a strike at a large lumber mill near their offices, where McKay had accused the owner, William Lansbury, of hiring non-union workers and highlighted his family ties to the Daily Herald’s editor. Pankhurst had her reasons for suppressing the piece: years earlier, as a militant suffragette, she had evaded arrest thanks to Lansbury, who smuggled her out of town hidden under wood in his timber wagon. She also owed debts to his relative, George Lansbury, including the printing costs for the Dreadnought. McKay reflected wryly that “after all, there are stories the capitalist press won’t print for capitalist reasons, and stories the radical press won’t print for radical reasons.”
In July 1920, Pankhurst attended the Second World Congress of the Communist International in Russia. Since the Home Office had seized her passport, she resorted to creative travel arrangements, stowing away on a freighter. While she was in Russia meeting Lenin, McKay took on his usual role as managing editor.
During this period, he wrote the essay “The Yellow Peril and the Dockers” under the pen name Leon Lopez. He described scenes at London’s West India Docks in the East End, where “scores of seamen, white, brown, and black, waited wistfully for an undermanned ship.” He detailed the precarious nature of dock work and the poverty faced by the dockers’ families, emphasizing how capitalism turns those labeled “alien” against each other. In his conclusion, McKay argued that the nation’s wealth lies not in the affluent West End but in the East End, and that the unemployed should lead an assault on the dock warehouses to address joblessness.
McKay also arranged for the cover story in the October 16, 1920, issue, written by a Royal Navy sailor.Written under a fake name, the article highlighted the struggles of dock-workers—meager pay and the soaring prices of sailors’ gear. It urged the creation of a “Red Navy to defend the working class,” asking, “Will you stand by while your class is crushed by capitalist brutes who profited millions from your wartime sacrifices?”
Authorities saw these writings as stirring up class conflict. The Workers’ Socialist Federation had long irritated security agencies, and with growing fears of Bolshevism, they used this as a reason to shut down what they called “the Communist party’s mouthpiece.” On October 18, 1920, the Dreadnought’s offices were raided. Sylvia Pankhurst had just come back from Russia, and her secretary rushed upstairs to warn Claude McKay that police were below, tearing through the main offices and grilling Pankhurst about her Royal Navy source. McKay went back to his small upstairs office, grabbed the original “Hunter” article, hid it in his sock, and slipped past the officers’ notice, later flushing it down a toilet. Pankhurst was soon arrested for encouraging treason in the Royal Navy by calling for a strike.
A young Finnish staffer named Erkki Veltheim, who worked closely with McKay translating foreign press articles, was also arrested. Police found letters from Pankhurst to Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders in his possession, revealing Veltheim (known as Comrade Vie at the paper) as an illegal Bolshevik courier in Britain. After six months in jail for failing to register as an alien, he was deported. Pankhurst, prosecuted for sedition as the paper’s editor, got a six-month sentence in Holloway Prison. The Dreadnought closed in 1924 after a decade of publication.
Fearing arrest, McKay left England in early 1921, sailing to the U.S. the same day Pankhurst started her prison term. In New York, the Eastmans hired him as an associate editor at the Liberator, making him the only Black editor on a white-run magazine. McKay later wrote that his time with the Dreadnought in London had prepared him well for this role.
McKay’s most famous poetry collection, Harlem Shadows, came out in spring 1922. Soon after, frustrated that Max Eastman didn’t take anti-colonial efforts seriously enough, McKay left the Liberator for Russia, eager to witness Lenin’s “grand experiment” firsthand.
In Russia, he spoke at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, alongside Black Surinamese communist Otto Huiswoud, about the role and potential of Black workers in the global labor movement. They were the first Black individuals to address the Comintern on such topics, also discussing how Britain and France exploited Black troops during World War I.
From 1919 to 1922, McKay used his journalism to spotlight the challenges facing Black workers in the U.S. and Europe. By late 1922, he was grappling with an identity crisis, burdened by the expectation to represent his entire race. His activities were under surveillance not just by British police but also the FBI, which had secretly labeled him a “well-known radical” and was probing his ties to the revolutionary IWW and Pankhurst.
To avoid persecution as a radical, McKay embraced what he called the “vagabond spirit”—focusing on poetry and travel. In May 1923, he went to Berlin, becoming a recognizable figure in the city’s cabaret bars, dressed in flashy checkered suits, as hyperinflation swept the country.The money his friends had sent him months earlier had lost its value overnight. Unable to make a living in Germany, McKay moved to France, where he produced some of his most significant and enduring fiction. This included the bestseller Home to Harlem (1928), about a former soldier piecing his life back together after World War I, and Banjo (1929), largely inspired by his time in Marseille during the summer of 1926. These works, along with his poetry, cemented McKay’s status as a key voice in the Harlem Renaissance. Yet he led a wandering and often impoverished life, exiled in Europe and hesitant to return to the U.S. due to his past involvement with communism.
In 1934, in his mid-40s, he came back to a struggling U.S. economy. For a writer of his reputation, it was particularly disheartening that he had to stay at Harlem’s YMCA and take a job at Greycourt, a shelter for the needy. By the time he died of heart failure in May 1948, McKay expressed disillusionment with all ideologies—communism, capitalism, racism, nationalism, and imperialism—and emphasized that he had always followed his own independent course.
It took decades after his death for McKay’s fiction to be acknowledged for its unique portrayal of historic multicultural communities and the devastating effects of poverty and colonialism. Black power activist Stokely Carmichael even alleged that Winston Churchill borrowed lines from McKay’s poem “If We Must Die” to motivate wartime Britain, without giving credit. McKay’s nomadic existence allowed his writing to span continents, offering a rare Black perspective of the era. However, it was in the offices of the Dreadnought in London, where he vividly described the fog as a “heavy, suffocating shroud,” that he first grasped the revolutionary potential of the written word.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about the topic Unemployed individuals should spearhead the movement a bold Jamaican journalist in 1920s London
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 What is this topic about
This topic explores the idea that during social or political movements unemployed people who have the most to gain from change can be powerful leaders It uses the historical example of a courageous Jamaican journalist living in 1920s London to illustrate this point
2 Who is the bold Jamaican journalist
The journalist is Claudia Jones She was a Trinidadborn journalist and activist who lived in the US and later in London where she became a key figure in fighting for racial and social justice especially within the Caribbean community
3 Why focus on unemployed people
Unemployed individuals are often directly affected by unfair economic systems Because they are not tied to a job that might silence them they can be more fearless and dedicated in demanding change and have the time to organize
4 What was life like for Black people in 1920s London
Black communities often from the Caribbean and Africa faced widespread racism discrimination in housing and jobs social exclusion and poverty This environment created a strong need for community support and political action
5 What is a movement in this context
A movement is an organized effort by a group of people to achieve a common social or political goal such as fighting for workers rights racial equality or better living conditions
Advanced Practical Questions
6 What specific contributions did Claudia Jones make
Claudia Jones was a powerful writer and organizer She founded and edited The West Indian Gazette the first major Black newspaper in Britain which became a voice for the community She also famously founded the Notting Hill Carnival as a positive response to racial violence and to celebrate Caribbean culture
7 Why is the 1920s setting significant for this idea
The 1920s was a period of global economic change and rising social unrest after World War I For colonial subjects in London it was a time of growing anticolonial and PanAfrican thought making it a fertile ground for movements led by those marginalized by the economy
8 What are the potential challenges of having the unemployed lead a movement
Key challenges include a lack of financial resources to sustain the movement
