Messenger Reader Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the Messenger Magazine

Introduction IF WE MUST DIE If we must die--let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot If we must die, let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead.* In his poem "If We Must Die," Claude McKay embodies the new spirit and new self-confidence that was flourishing among black intellectuals and writers shortly before the advent of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. This newfound intellectual and cultural freedom owed much to the eloquent editorials in The Messenger. Founded by A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen, the New York-based journal first appeared in 1917 for the express purpose of promoting a socialist movement. Born in Crescent City, Florida, Randolph moved to New York around 1906. After studying at the City College of New York, he became active in the socialist movement. While he was editor of The Messenger in 1921 he made an unsuccessful bid for the office of secretary of state in New York on the socialist ticket. During The Messenger's final years, he abandoned his militancy and devoted more of his efforts to organizing the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Messenger cofounder Chandler Owen was born in Warrenton, North Carolina, in 1889. After graduating from Virginia Union University, he moved to New York, where he met A. Philip Randolph, and joined the Socialist Party in 1916. Randolph and Owen were the key figures of The Messenger's editorial team, and their inner circle included W A. Domingo, George S. Schuyler, Theophilus Lewis, William Colson, and J. A. Rogers. The Messenger was published sporadically during its early years because of meager funding, the First World War, and printers' strikes. It was not published on a consistent basis until 1921, and in 1928 the magazine folded permanently. During its eleven-year run, the journal boasted of being "the only magazine of scientific radicalism in the world published by Negroes." In this Introduction, I want to explain The Messenger's role in the evolution of the Harlem Renaissance. The magazine's poems, short stories, reviews, and essays presented here illustrate its function as an intellectual and cultural outlet for black artists. These writings resonate with the new type of black militancy The Messenger helped to produce. I hope to make evident how this spirit of rebellion helped to engender the Harlem Renaissance. Noted scholar David Levering Lewis wrote that "The Harlem Renaissance was a somewhat forced phenomenon, a cultural nationalism of the parlor, institutionally encouraged and directed by leaders of the national civil rights establishment for the paramount purpose of improving race relations." Writer Arna Bontemps divided the literary movement into two phases. Phase one (1921 to 1924) was the period of primary black propaganda. The Crisis, Opportunity, and The Messenger magazines were the most important supporters of phase two, (1924 to 1931), which eventually served to connect Harlem writers to the white intelligentsia who had access to establishment publishing entities. This relationship proved essential in promulgating the Harlem Renaissance. (Tbe Crisis Reader and The Opportunity Reader, two previous volumes in this series, include discussions of those magazines' roles in the development of the Harlem Renaissance.) After the First World War, gifted black writers such as Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Wallace Thurman, and Zora Neale Hurston gravitated to Harlem. By this time there were more African-American journalists, dramatists, poets, composers, intellectuals, and actors with international recognition there than in all other American cities combined. In spite of this diverse collection of talent, barriers based on racial prejudiceWilson, Sondra Kathryn is the author of 'Messenger Reader Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the Messenger Magazine' with ISBN 9780375755392 and ISBN 037575539X.