Screening & Discussion: Claude McKay — From Harlem to Marseille
Documentary screening followed by Q&A with director Matthieu Verdeil and scholar Brent Edwards, tracing Claude McKay's 1920s journey across continents.
Why we picked this
A rare documentary on one of the Harlem Renaissance's most restless figures, followed by a conversation with his biographer — the kind of evening that redraws the map of Black literary history.
This documentary follows Claude McKay’s extraordinary 1920s odyssey from Jamaica to Harlem to Marseille, with stops in revolutionary Russia and Morocco along the way. McKay was a rebel among rebels — a Harlem Renaissance pioneer who spent more than a decade in Europe engaging with artistic and political movements that would shape twentieth-century thought.
Director Matthieu Verdeil traces McKay’s path through archival footage and contemporary landscapes, while Columbia professor Brent Edwards — one of the foremost scholars of the Black diaspora — joins for a post-screening conversation that promises to illuminate McKay’s enduring relevance.
Free and open to the public. Non-Columbia attendees should register via Eventbrite for a QR code.