Home to Harlem (1928) By Claude McKay

 

Among the many authors associated with the Harlem Renaissance none looms larger than Claude McKay. His 1928 book Home to Harlem captures the essence of the neighborhood, reputation, and the era. It follows the life of a man named Jake from his last day before departing for military service in World War I, to his return a couple of years later; all of which is instructive for readers then, and now a century later.

McKay is controversial among the Renaissance writers in that he recounted, in detail, the underside of life in Harlem. It was Prohibition era nightclubs, gambling, drugs, booze, and women; but it was also a low-income existence foretelling a dog-eat-dog world of fighting for work, sometimes with your friends. And the demoralizing aspect of men who so often had to rely on women for support, not that McKay’s female characters came out any better or less demoralized.

Jake’s first real job was in the military, shipped to Europe with the hype about fighting to save the world. Only he wasn’t fighting, most Black soldiers weren’t fighting, they were assigned to support services, laboring no different from their jobs back home, only with a steadier paycheck. He discovered that the racism of Europeans was only marginally better than in the States. He learned, felt, that Black soldiers were merely pawns in the White world’s wars with each other.

When he left the military, without discharge, he stayed in Europe for a time working in various port cities as a longshoreman during the post-war reconstruction period. But what he longed for was returning to an environment where Blacks were not a minority, where they had a place of their own. He worked as a ship hand to gain passage back to New York.

Harlem Renaissance

There are a multitude of interesting character profiles in the book. There are also a many issues covered, including: the relationships between women and men; union organizing in for Longshoremen’s Union where Blacks were allowed, but relegated to the worst assignments, and a last-in first-out layoffs policy; marginally better treatment among the Pullman Porters; and the always present topic of black, bronze, and “passing” skin pigments.

Recommendation: Yes, an informative read.