To One Coming North

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1922

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

Claude McKay was part of the poetic and artistic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance peaked in the 1920s, and poets like Langston Hughes and McKay focused their work on the experiences of Black Americans, experiences which had been historically marginalized and silenced. The literary voices of the Harlem Renaissance were varied and diverse, exploring different strands of Black identity and experience. Unlike other poets, McKay chose to use traditional European forms to create a new Black poetry. His utilization of these forms—as is evident in the ballad-like structure “To One Coming North”—was a way of molding the colonial and dominant gaze in his own image. Just like his Jamaican forebears made English their own language, McKay also used traditional forms to narrate non-European and Black experiences. His poetry draws its power from this convergence and juxtaposition. “To One Coming North” is, at one level, a pastoral ballad in the tradition of Scottish bard Robert Burns, yet, at another level, it is a deeply political and current poem, dealing with an experience unique to Black people. The “you” the poem addresses is the ordinary folk who show bravery as they take on great journeys to build a freer life away from racist oppression.

Historical Context

McKay’s move to America, his political activism, and the idea of literature as a form of resistance are inextricably tied up with the Great Migration and the rise of the Harlem Renaissance. According to journalist Isabel Wilkerson, between the time of World War I and the 1970s, as many as six million Black people migrated from the south to the cities of the American north and west.

Though slavery had been officially abolished in 1865, the status of Black people in the American south continued to be fraught. Racial segregation was a social and cultural norm in the south, as were lynchings and other acts of racist violence. Most Black families made a living as landless peasants or sharecroppers, so for many of these families, the migration away from the South slowly grew into an imperative. For McKay, the move to New York as well as the act of writing the Black experience were acts of active political resistance. Early on, he was one of the few writers who recognized that the Great Migration was a necessary movement in the context of American history.

As Black people sought a new life away from the oppressive racist norms of the American south, they strengthened the idea of a new Black identity, away from the white majority. Many of those who migrated north, including to the Harlem district of New York, included future writers, artists, and playwrights. The migration was not limited to individuals from the continental United States; McKay moved to New York from Jamaica, which was then still colonized by the British. As Black families took on their difficult and heroic journey, the need to artistically express their experiences and identity grew stronger and nourished the Harlem Renaissance.