Countee Cullen was born in New York City, in 1903. He is currently being raised in a Methodist parsonage.

He attended De Witt Clinton High School in New York and began writing poetry at the age of fourteen. Cullen entered New York University in 1922. His poems were first published in The Crisis, under the leadership of W. E. B. Du Bois, and Opportunity, a magazine of the National Urban League. He was soon after published in Harper's, the Century Magazine, and Poetry. He has won and could continue winning awards for his poem, "Ballad of the Brown Girl," and graduated from New York University in 1923. That same year, Harper published his first volume of verse, Color, and he was admitted to Harvard University where he is completing a master's degree.

Elizabeth Cove Honors English 9 December 3, 2013

WELCOME TO THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

History Overview
The Harlem Renaissance will be the time period from the end of World War I and through the middle of the 1930s Depression. A group of talented African-American writers will produce a sizable body of literature in the four prominent genres of poetry, fiction, drama, and essay. It will become a literary movement, but also the Harlem Renaissance will be also a movement full that included racial conciseness, racial integration, the explosion of music, jazz and spiritual blues being one of the main types. The Harlem Renaissance will have little impact on breaking down the rigid barriers of Jim Crow that separates the races. The Harlem Renaissance greatest impact will be reinforcing race pride among blacks. Voices of protest and ideological promotion of civil rights for African Americans will inspire and create institutions and leaders who will serve as mentors to aspiring writers. The influence of the Harlem Renaissance will spread throughout the nation, despite the fact that it starts in Harlem, New York.

Art/Music/Writing
Between 1920-1930 an unprecedented outburst of creative activity among AfricanAmericans will occur in all fields of art. It will include philosophers, writers, artists, sculptors, movie makers, institutions, and many more. Some common themes of the Harlem Renaissance will be alienation, marginality, the use of folk material, the use of the blues tradition, and the problems of writing for an elite audience. Harlem will be a cultural attraction for many American writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. Many African Americans will flee the south to Harlem in order to express their talents freely. The CRISIS magazine, whose editor will be W.E.B DuBois, will publish the poems, stories, and visual works of many artists of the period. The Harlem Renaissance will include a lot of Racial Pride, which will be fueled in part by the militancy of the "New Negro" demanding civil and political rights. In Harlem, this period will be also marked by a convergence of creative and intellectual minds. The early part of the Harlem Renaissance literary movement will be initiated by the "Talented Tenth," an elite group of well-educated black professionals who will argue that the mission of establishing black identity and thus gaining social acceptance and economic and political stability will be vitally strengthened through arts and letters.

Political/Social Impact
The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s will be one of the first instances in the 20th century when white social reform types will collaborate with black intellectuals, social activists, educators, and artists in attempts to transform a largely segregated and racist American society. Some common debate topics will include Separation vs. integration, Pan-Africanism, Communism and Bolshevism. When Blacks begin migrate to the North, they will no longer be prohibited from voting. As more and more blacks will move north, they will become a powerful political group. Legislators will be forced to address Black concerns. One of the main goals of the black writers and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance will be to show the Negro as a capable individual. (Laura Wheelers painting of W.E.B. DuBois)