Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen was an American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance.

Countee LeRoy Porter was born on May 30, 1903, to Elizabeth Thomas Lucas. Due to a lack of records of his early childhood, historians have had difficulty identifying his birthplace. Baltimore, Maryland, New York City, and Louisville, Kentucky have been cited as possibilities. Although Cullen claimed to be born in New York City, he also frequently referred to Louisville, Kentucky as his birthplace on legal applications. Cullen was brought to Harlem at the age of nine by Amanda Porter, believed to be his paternal grandmother, who cared for him until her death in 1917.

Reverend Frederick A. Cullen, pastor of Salem Methodist Episcopal Church, Harlem's largest congregation, and his wife, the former Carolyn Belle Mitchell, adopted the 15-year-old Countee Porter, although the adoption may not have been official. Frederick Cullen was a central figure in Countee's life, and acted as his father. The influential minister would eventually become president of the Harlem chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Cullen married Yolande Du Bois on April 9, 1928. She was the surviving child of W. E. B. Du Bois and his first wife Nina Gomer Du Bois, whose son had died as an infant. The two young people were said to have been introduced by Cullen's close friend Harold Jackman. They met in the summer of 1923 when both were in college: she was at Fisk University and he was at NYU. Cullen's parents owned a summer home in Pleasantville, New Jersey near the Jersey Shore, and Yolande and her family were likely also vacationing in the area when they first met.

While at Fisk, Yolande had had a romantic relationship with the jazz saxophonist Jimmie Lunceford. However, her father disapproved of Lunceford. The relationship ended after Yolande accepted her father's preference of a marriage to Cullen.

The wedding was the social event of the decade among the African-American elite. Cullen, along with W.E.B. Du Bois, planned the details of the wedding with little help from Yolande. Every detail of the wedding, including the rail car used for transportation and Cullen receiving the marriage license four days prior to the wedding day, was considered big news and was reported to the public by the African-American press. His father, Frederick A. Cullen, officiated at the wedding. The church was overcrowded, as 3,000 people came to witness the ceremony.

Several years later, Cullen died from high blood pressure and uremic poisoning on January 9, 1946, aged 42. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.