Banjo

Lincoln Agrippa Daily, known on the 1920s Marseilles waterfront as "Banjo," prowls the rough waterfront bistros with his drifter friends, drinking, looking for women, playing music, fighting, loving, and talking--about their homes in Africa, the West Indies, or the American South and about being Black.

Claude McKay was a writer and poet. Born in Jamaica in 1889 to peasant farmers, he wrote poetry and fiction about Black life in Jamaica and America. His books include Harlem Shadows (1922); Constab Ballads (1912); and Songs of Jamaica (1912), as well as a number of novels and short-story collections. A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, he was also involved in many social causes, particularly in the fight for racial justice. He died in Chicago in 1948.