Claude McKay

CTL-E-6217 · Person · writer · 1889–1948; Harlem Renaissance, 1920s

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07412 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6217.

Claude McKay was a Jamaican-born American poet and novelist and a leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance. Born September 15, 1889, in Jamaica — the Poetry Foundation gives Sunny Ville and Britannica gives Nairne Castle — he was the son of peasant farmers, tutored by his brother and by Walter Jekyll, who urged him to write in Jamaican dialect. His first books, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, appeared in 1912, and he used an award for the former to travel to the United States that year. After brief study at Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State, he settled in New York in 1914 and published in The Liberator, including the protest poetry that made his reputation. Spring in New Hampshire (1920) and Harlem Shadows (1922) established him as a militant voice against racism. After years in the Soviet Union, France, Spain and Morocco, he published Home to Harlem in 1928, described by Britannica as the most popular novel by a Black American author to that time, followed by Banjo and Banana Bottom. He became a U.S. citizen in 1940 and died in Chicago.

The record

• Also known as: Festus Claudius McKay

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 6 — 747 Program, Wave 13; sixth Scan Tail packet at the founder’s 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A CLEAR (script + hand-checked 2026-10-16): no Claude McKay entity, alias, or variant in the live graph (3,910 entities). ID CTL-E-6217 free at staging. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger — scan string #2379 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json), banked in the Scan Tail Wave 5 reserve (Appendix E), re-screened CLEAR against the live graph at 3,910 entities by this wave. The supply supplied the name only; every fact is sourced under CTL-GOV-004. SCOPE GATE: Central Harlem Renaissance literary figure with a Chicago death and late-life Chicago residence, linking CTL's literary register to the Caribbean diaspora; in scope under PPL/BCI/GLOBAL. Vital status: DECEASED — born September 15, 1889, Jamaica; died May 22, 1948, Chicago, Illinois (Britannica). Poetry Foundation confirms death of heart failure in 1948 after moving to Chicago, without a day-level date in the opened text. CONFLICT SHOWN on birthplace locality: Britannica gives Nairne Castle; Poetry Foundation gives Sunny Ville — the packet prints both and does not blend them. STATISTICS — Harlem Shadows 1922 (both sources); Home to Harlem 1928 (both sources); U.S. citizenship 1940 (Britannica). Birthplace conflict as above; no other material conflict between the opened sources. MEDIA: photo HELD (The Carl Van Vechten portrait photograph of Claude McKay held at Yale's Beinecke Library (referenced in Poetry Foundation-derived listings) is a plausible candidate; HELD — no license is claimed and a file-level PHOTO-001 record is required before any use.); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6217-claude-mckay.svg); video HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short found in the Shorts Link Map (2026-10-15, 233 Shorts searched by name and variants); near-miss: none titled for McKay.); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A. MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record’s sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short found in the Shorts Link Map (2026-10-15, 233 Shorts searched by name and variant) | audio = HELD (HELD: No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio exists at staging.)

Relationships

• Harlem Renaissance — related to
  Both opened sources identify McKay as a leading voice / key figure of the Harlem Renaissance; graph endpoint Harlem Renaissance, Practice, CTL-E-5413.

Sources

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Claude McKay (updated September 11, 2026) (accessed 2026-10-16) — born September 15, 1889, Nairne Castle, Jamaica; died May 22, 1948, Chicago, Illinois; leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance; Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads (1912) before moving to the United States in 1912; Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State Agricultural College, then New York City in 1914 and The Liberator; Spring in New Hampshire (1920) and Harlem Shadows (1922); lived in Soviet Union, France, Spain and Morocco after 1922; Home to Harlem (1928) the most popular novel by a Black American author to that time; Banjo (1929), Gingertown (1932), Banana Bottom (1933); U.S. citizen 1940; converted to Roman Catholicism 1942 — http://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-McKay (primary source · build store)
• The Poetry Foundation, Claude McKay (accessed 2026-10-16) — born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica, in 1889; son of peasant farmers; tutored by his brother Uriah Theophilus McKay and Walter Jekyll, who advised dialect verse; constable work in Kingston; Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads published in London in 1912; award used to travel to America in 1912; Tuskegee, then Kansas State, then New York City in 1914; Harlem Shadows (1922) assured his stature in the Harlem Renaissance; Home to Harlem (1928) his most recognized novel; died of heart failure in 1948 after moving to Chicago — http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/claude-mckay (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6217 · Combined Graph record U-07412 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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