“It was the first time I had ever come face to face with such manifest, implacable hate of my race, and my feelings were indescribable.”

Recording the shock of American racial hatred after Jamaica · Essay, Claude McKay Describes His Own Life, Pearson's Magazine, 1918

• America
• Anger
• Race

“I do believe in the mystery of the symbol of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, through which all of humanity may be united in brotherly love.”

Stating the faith that preceded his reception into the Catholic Church · Letter, 16 August 1944

• Faith
• Religion
• Unity

“I felt assurance that If We Must Die was just what I intended it to be, a universal poem.”

Taking later wartime use of the sonnet as proof of its wider intent · Autobiography, A Long Way from Home, 1937

• Meaning
• Poetry
• War