Harlem One Stop

Finding Africa in Harlem: Displacement and Belonging in Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem

One of the most striking things about Home to Harlem is that no one seems to be at home in Harlem. Not Jake, the novel’s main character, a Virginia‑born African American migrant to New York; not Ray, his friend, an educated Black Haitian immigrant; and not its itinerant Black residents, whose precarious lives seem to consist of an endless rotation from boardinghouse to pool room to nightclub.

Source: lithub.com, Belinda Edmondson, February 5, 2025

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