ENGL 281 Lecture Notes - Lecture 31: Elaine Race Riot, Scipio Africanus Jones, Langston Hughes
Calderon 87
Claude McKay (1890-1948)
McKay's Life:
• Born in Jamaica where he had some schooling and learned
verse poetry
• Came to the US in 1912 and studied at Booker T
Washington’s institution, where he learned about American
racism
o His innovation lay in the directness with which he
spoke of racial issues and his choice of the working
class, rather than the middle class, as his focus.
• Almost certainly talking about Langston Hughes: the poet
that did not want to be known as a black poet
o
"Harlem Shadows,:” his most significant poem collection
" If We Must Die" About the injustices that took place during the Red Summer of 1919: About the
dishonorable lynching of black people by white supremacists
The Elaine Race Riot led to a change in behavior among people in the South, for blacks were finally
tired of being robbed of what was rightfully theirs’ and decided to fight back
• Farmers were tired of working the same as slaves despite the end of it
o Death of numerous blacks and a handful of whites began which in the end reached
the level of going to court.
Scipio Jones: Little Rock’s most prominent lawyer and Murphy set it upon themselves to save the
lives of these 12 condemned men https://arkansasblacklawyers.uark.edu/lawyers/sajones.html
• Jones risked his like in going to Arkansas and defending these men.
• Moore v. Dempsy
o NAACP works alongside Jones to save the lives of those condemned to death
o Jones helped prevent future deaths. In 1925, this was the one moment in which the
supreme court ruled in favor of blacks and win
o Aftermanth:
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4642&context=law_
lawreview
If we must die never once mentions blacks nor whites
McKay knows that we are bringing something to that poem as a nation
• Poetry creates a direct connection to the author that we can also feel due to its composition
o Its style is personal; taps into one's own emotions
o Poetry has the freedom to interpret the text how you wish: has more autonomy
o Poetry has the ability to heal because its connecting qualities due to it being such a
personal form of writing
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Calderon 88
What happens when the subaltern speaks?
• Notion of orientalism: idea that the western side of the world is innately inferior to
Europeans
• What happens when you speak for the world? You must assume that the subaltern has
nothing worthy to say?
• When it speaks, it is things the dominant culture cannot say, think or feel, which is when
poetry becomes a Bridgepoint
• This is the first time in which the subaltern speaks in an unequivocal voice that says "we did
not have a country," "we no longer care about what you think about me"
o The subaltern voice must include all voices: poetic, political, is when our nation can
take form.
o This is why the nation has centered around African American identity
▪ The one group of people that have been marginalized all throughout the
country
• This poem is telling us what is happening in America:
1919: post-war boom (Roaring 20s)
o In 1920, women get the right to vote: a coalescence between men and women
o The Jazz Era: people of all genders are no longer afraid of using their voice
o These writers are writing at the same time during the Harlem Renn. But are never confused,
because things were still not perfect.
▪ Period of growth in voice lasts about 9 years: flowering of art, relative period of
peace
o 1930s Great Depression: people of color and women are the first to let go, and the last to be
hired back again
▪ This period of growth is punctuated by violence
▪ Began with a riot, and ended with a riot
• Summer of 1919: Eugene Williams was killed via rocks until he drowns for having crossed
the imaginary line in the lake that separated where whites and blacks could swim
o The white men that killed him were in no way ever inculped for Williams' death
o Whites, however, begin rioting in black communities
Red Summer of 1919: watershed moment pierced by these moments of violence
• 50 years later, in 1969,
• Long summer of 1968 July of 1967-july 1969:
o Here is where we see America transformed: Robert J Kennedy and King are
assassinated
▪ We end this summer with Woodstock
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