If We Must Die by Claude McKay. One of the greatest poems in literary history. Take a few minutes to read this powerful poem written during the Harlem Renaissance and influenced by the writings and scholarship of W.E.B. DuBois.

If We Must Die by Claude McKay. One of the greatest poems in literary history. Take a few minutes to read this powerful poem written during the Harlem Renaissance and influenced by the writings and scholarship of W.E.B. DuBois.

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 accursèd lot.

If we must die, O 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!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

History is not there for you to like or dislike. It is there for you to learn from it. And if it offends you, even better. Because then you are less likely to repeat it. It's not yours for you to erase or destroy.