My favorite poem for resilience “If we must die”

I’m dying. Everyone is dying — so when the days get hard, how do I push through? How do I fight for good? Fight for myself and others?

I’m inspired by this poem.

“If We Must Die” is one of Claude McKay’s most famous poems, written in 1919 in response to the racial violence and oppression experienced by African Americans, particularly during the Red Summer of 1919. This sonnet is a powerful call to arms, urging those who face oppression to stand up with courage and dignity, even in the face of death.

Here is the full text of the poem:

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 accursed 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 deathblow!

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!

The poem’s powerful imagery and impassioned tone capture the resolve to resist oppression and maintain dignity even in the face of certain death. McKay’s sonnet has become an enduring symbol of resistance and defiance against injustice.