Idealism is like a castle in the air if it is not based on a solid foundation of social and political realism.

This started his regular involvement with Workers' Dreadnought and the Workers' Socialist Federation a Council Communist group active in the East End and which had a majority of women involved in it at all levels of the organization. The article about his co-editor position was found in The Chicago Defender. McKay's original English manuscripts have been lost.

McKay was attracted to communism in his early life but he was never a member of the Communist Party. McKay also authored a collection of short stories Gingertown (1932) two autobiographical books A Long Way from Home (1937) and My Green Hills of Jamaica (publiClaude McKayd posthumously) and a non-fiction socio-historical treatise entitled Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940).