When Claude McKay immigrated to America in 1912, he arrived at the height of the country’s racial tension. Almost immediately, McKay experienced “extremely traumatic” and constant prejudice (Denize, Donna E. M., and Newlin, Louisa. “The Sonnet Tradition and Claude McKay.” English Journal, vol. 99, no. 1, 2009, p. 102). He first lived in the Southern state of Alabama and later moved north to Kansas and eventually New York, but in each state he was the victim of severe racial prejudice and the witness of violent racial conflicts. These conflicts escalated in 1919 with the race riots of the Red Summer. McKay and his fellow Black Americans watched helplessly as over three dozen violent conflicts between white people and Black people, many of whom were soldiers returning from WWI, broke out across the country because of the Jim Crow segregation laws. While estimates vary, many historians believe over 250 Black Americans were killed in less than a year. A number of those casualties were women and children. During these riots, white mobs also forcibly removed thousands of Black families from their homes.

This escalation in violence also saw the revival of a dark and persistent practice in the United States: lynching.