Harlem Glory

Book excerpt: Written in the late 1940s but unpublished till now, this superb portrayal of Black life during the Great Depression and the New Deal is virtually a sequel to the classic Home to Harlem. Mckay's vivid, warm evocations of the omnipresent numbers racket, all-night jazz parties and the whole exuberant and cacophonous clash of social movements and ideologies - Black nationalism and industrial unionism as well as incipient Muslim and other heterodox religious formations - provide the context for a fast-paced narrative of love, work, play and revolt in Black America during one of the most stirring periods in US history. Astutely sensitive to the extraordinary vitality and diversity of Black culture, and drawing on the author's experiences in the IWW and the extreme Left of the socialist movement, Harlem Glory reveals Claude McKay at his very best.