Cullen, Countee

Countee Cullen was born in Louisville, Kentucy or Baltimore, Md., and reared by a woman who was probably his paternal grandmother. He was adopted unofficially at the age of 15 by the Reverend F.A. Cullen, minister of Salem M.E. Church, one of the largest congregations of Harlem. Later Reverend Cullen became the head of the Harlem chapter of NAACP. His real mother did not contact him until he became famous in the 1920s.