Claude McKay’s sonnet “If We Must Die,” written in 1919 in response to a wave of European American attacks on African Americans, had such a powerful public impact that it was read decades later by Winston Churchill to exhort Britain to fight the Nazis, and entered into the U.S. Congressional Record:   “If We Must Die,” Claude McKay (1919) 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–oh, 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!…