[1] Although Cullen claimed to have been born in New York City, he also frequently referred to Louisville, Kentucky, as his birthplace on legal applications.

[1] 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.

The influential minister eventually became president of the Harlem chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must someday die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair.

He competed in a poetry contest sponsored by Opportunity and came in second with "To One Who Say Me Nay", losing to Langston Hughes's "The Weary Blues".

That same year, Cullen entered Harvard to pursue a master's in English, and published Color, his first collection of poems that later became a landmark of the Harlem Renaissance.

[12] Written in a careful, traditional style, the work celebrated black beauty and deplored the effects of racism.

[13] In 1926, Cullen graduated with a master's degree[13] while also serving as the guest editor of a special "Negro Poets" issue of the poetry magazine, Palms.

Locke also sought to present the authentic natures of sex and sexuality through writing, creating a kind of relationship with those who felt the same.

Locke introduced Cullen to gay-affirming material, such as the work of Edward Carpenter, at a time when most gays were in the closet.

[22] Her father wrote separately to Cullen, saying that he thought Yolande's lack of sexual experience was the reason the marriage did not work out.

[24] The young, dashing Jackman was a school teacher and, thanks to his handsome visage, a prominent figure among Harlem's gay elite.

According to Thomas Wirth, author of Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance, Selections from the Work of Richard Bruce Nugent, there is no evidence that the men were lovers, despite newspaper stories and gossip suggesting the contrary.

Other leading figures included Alain Locke (The New Negro, 1925), James Weldon Johnson (Black Manhattan, 1930), Claude McKay (Home to Harlem, 1928), Langston Hughes (The Weary Blues, 1926), Zora Neale Hurston (Jonah's Gourd Vine, 1934), Wallace Thurman (Harlem: A Melodrama of Negro Life, 1929), Jean Toomer (Cane, 1923) and Arna Bontemps (Black Thunder, 1935).

The Harlem Renaissance was influenced by a movement called Négritude, which represents "the discovery of black values and the Negro’s awareness of his situation".

Cullen's work intersects with the Harlem community and such prominent figures of the Renaissance as Duke Ellington and poet and playwright Langston Hughes.

Ellington admired Cullen for confronting a history of oppression and shaping a new voice of “great achievement over fearful odds”.

However, Hughes critiqued Cullen, albeit indirectly, and other Harlem Renaissance writers, for the “desire to run away spiritually from [their] race”.

"[35] Cullen worked as assistant editor for Opportunity magazine, where his column, "The Dark Tower", increased his literary reputation.

Cullen's poetry collections The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927) and Copper Sun (1927) explored similar themes as Color, but they were not so well received.

From 1934 until the end of his life, he taught English, French, and creative writing at Frederick Douglass Junior High School in New York City.

In 1949 the anthology radio drama Destination Freedom, written by Richard Durham, recapped parts of his life.

[39] Due to Cullen's mixed identity, he developed an aesthetic that embraced both black and white cultures.

[40] In his collection of poems To the Three for Whom the Book Cullen uses Greek methodology to explore race and identity and writes about Medusa, Theseus, Phasiphae, and the Minotaur.

[40] Although continuing to develop themes of race and identity in his work, Cullen found artistic inspiration in ancient Greek and Roman literature.

[40] In Caroling Dusk, an anthology edited by Cullen, he expands on his belief of using a Eurocentric style of writing.

[4] He believed using a more traditional style of writing poetry would allow African Americans to build bridges between the black and white communities.

He discusses the psychology of African Americans in his writings and gives an extra dimension that forces the reader to see a harsh reality of Americas past time.

[41] During the Harlem Renaissance, Cullen, Hughes, and other poets were using their creative energy trying fuse Africa into the narrative of their African-American lives.

[43] By the time Cullen published this book of poetry, the concept of the Black Messiah was prevalent in other African-American writers such as Langston Hughes, Claude Mackay, and Jean Toomer.