COUNTEE CULLEN

BORN: MAY 30, 1903, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

DIED: JANUARY 9, 1946, NEW YORK CITY

WRITER FOR CHILDREN, POET, NOVELIST, PLAYWRIGHT

“MY GOD TODAY,” as the kids would say. Countee Cullen most certainly lived an interesting life. Where to begin? I could start with how I fell in love with his poetic style. Or even how the interconnectedness of Black culture would eventually lead Countee to becoming a teacher for a young James Baldwin, another Black queer icon in his own right. Or I could start with the one story that continues to gag us all. Did you really marry that woman knowing you were a gay man in front of folks who also knew your business?

I’ll start with the basics. Countee (who pronounced his name as Coun-tay) had many talents, including being a poet, novelist, and playwright. He was one of the most well-known writers during the Harlem Renaissance. Folks who knew him personally said he was extremely intelligent, having graduated from New York University and been selected as one of eleven members for Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest honor society in the United States. He went on to receive a master’s degree from Harvard University. All these accomplishments made him an example of “Black excellence,” a concept that will come into play later.

His work was part of the Negritude movement, which focused on discovering Black values and raising Black people’s awareness of their place in society—and which was a driving force for many writers during the Harlem Renaissance. In reading his work, I found it interesting how he believed race relations between whites and Blacks needed to improve but placed some of that burden on Black folks—as if to say our assimilation into American identity was as important or more important than owning our Negro identity. I don’t believe the oppressed are responsible for fixing relations with their oppressor. We are not the creators of racism, nor do we have power within racist structures. We shouldn’t be expected to extend an olive branch to fix it.

That said, I do love his most well-known work, “The Ballad of the Brown Girl.” It won him several awards and deservedly so. In the fifty stanzas of the poem, he painted an entire movie. I can see why W. E. B. Du Bois loved his writing, too. It spoke to an elite space that some Blacks occupied. It was opulent and jubilant. However, folks like Langston Hughes had very real concerns about affluent Black leaders like Countee Cullen and W. E. B. Du Bois focusing their art only on the opulence of Blackness, and pushing others to do the same. Langston was like me in wanting Black art to be encompassing of the entire Black experience—the good, bad, and in between.

Part of that in between was Countee’s sexuality. Outside of literary debates, he was dealing with his own identity crisis. And because Countee was part of the Black elites of his day, he had to process questions about his sexuality while also being a leader in a heteronormative society.

Fortunately for him, friendship and support were found in one of the greatest Black philosophers of that time, Alain Locke. I talk more about him later in this book, but that’s the beauty of the Harlem Renaissance: how connected everyone was during that period.

It is said that Alain was like a mentor to Countee, helping him recognize who he truly was early in life. He supported Countee through the process of accepting his love for men. This isn’t to say that Countee didn’t also have a love for women—only that the societal pressure of heterosexuality and his love of women didn’t negate his feelings toward men. The juxtaposition of Black excellence against his identity influenced him throughout his life.

Okay, let’s talk about this wedding. Countee was definitely not the first man to marry a woman while still figuring out his sexuality. But to do it in front of three thousand people? He was bold for that one.

Countee’s wedding to Yolande Du Bois, W. E. B. Du Bois’s daughter, was the talk of the town in Black America. Two things I find most interesting about this whole circus: One, that Countee and W.E.B. planned the wedding with very little input from Yolande. And two, that Countee wasn’t known for being flashy. Instead he was quite shy. And yet he agreed to this widely publicized event.

Thankfully, they didn’t have social media during those times, because I can only imagine the frenzy that would have ensued—especially following the wedding. I’m sure both parties would have preferred to avoid being the center of attention, with everyone living vicariously through them. But this pairing was built on the notion of Black excellence rather than Black love.

W.E.B. had a theory called “The Talented Tenth.” This concept emphasized “the necessity for higher education to develop the leadership capacity among the most able 10 percent of black Americans.” He worried that Blacks would be ranked second-class citizens since industrial jobs—the ones Blacks most often held—weren’t looked as highly upon as educated professions like teachers, lawyers, or doctors. His philosophy had a limit, though: It excluded women as leaders, as he and many others felt that men were the most inspiring figures within the Black community. Maybe that’s the reason he wouldn’t even let his daughter plan her own wedding. W.E.B. held tight to the notion of male superiority in addition to class superiority.

Before she married Countee, Yolande was actually in love with a saxophonist she was dating named Jimmie Lunceford. W.E.B. disapproved of him because he was a musician. In a letter to his daughter, W.E.B. stated, “Nothing is more disheartening and idiotic than to see two human beings without cultivated tastes, without trained abilities, and without power to earn a living, locking themselves together and trying to live on love.”

Although Countee was struggling with his sexuality at the time, he agreed to marry Yolande. And W.E.B. got to host his “talented tenth wedding.” Now, just to note, Countee never chose an identity. In his lifetime, he had relationships with women as well as men. And maybe he never even knew the truth about himself. Rumor has it that Langston Hughes—who knew about Countee’s sexuality—not only attended the wedding but also gave the couple a fruit bowl as a gift. Whew—the shade of it all!

I think that wedding was more about the perception of Black excellence than about the truth of Black excellence. It’s not wealth, it’s not degrees, it’s not celebrity. Black excellence is our people making it this far despite a world intent on our death, built on our labor, and profiting off our struggle.

It’s said that several months after the wedding, while overseas, Countee finally told Yolande the truth about who he was, admitting his attraction to men.

I can’t even imagine the fear that went into him telling his truth. After taking those “sacred” vows in front of so many and being headline news throughout Black America, to know it was built on a huge lie must have been an incredible burden. Yolande immediately told her father she was going to file for a divorce. I gagged when I learned that W.E.B. did the unthinkable and wrote Countee a letter arguing that his daughter’s “lack of sexual experience” was the reason why the marriage wasn’t working.

Several things to parse out here. First, when a man confesses that he is in love with someone of the same gender, people often blame a woman. I’ve heard folks say that queer kids tend to come from single-mother homes because there’s no man around. Or that gay men can be turned heterosexual with “the right woman.” Such flawed logic is an attempt to deny the truth. Queer people know who they are and what they feel.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s remarks also speak to how poorly considered women were at that time. He blamed his own daughter for the demise of her marriage. Homophobia is a by-product of misogyny. Queerness in men is seen as an effeminate trait—too close to womanhood—and is thus hated. From my perspective, it is interesting to see W. E. B. Du Bois’s misogynistic thoughts being used in this case as a reason for why men might be gay.

Countee and Yolande divorced in 1930, having been married only two years. After this, Countee’s work shifted from being race-based to more romantically focused. I often think about the many ways Black artistry becomes a form of escapism. It was one of the many criticisms that the eighteenth-century poet Phillis Wheatley received. Critics felt she should have focused on her existence rather than optimism, love, and many other subjects her work covered. But I think that’s the beauty in our art: creating realities outside of our daily lives.

It’s very cool that Countee taught English at a junior high school in New York City later in life. He wrote stories for children and, as I mentioned earlier, even provided guidance to a young James Baldwin—one of the most prolific writers of our time. He did so much in the short forty-two years he had. Looking back on his life, this final quote from his poem “The Loss of Love” really hits me hard:

The loss of love is a terrible thing;

They lie who say that death is worse.

I wept for Countee as I finished writing this chapter. He searched so hard for love in his life. Like his first marriage, his second marriage (to Ida Mae Roberson, a woman he’d known for a long time) left him unfulfilled in the romance he desired. But his inability to fully live in his truth also led to multiple relationships with men that failed. He seemed to be a tortured soul looking to be free. May he be the reminder of how talent and intellect can’t protect you from a society unwilling to accept your full self. That you must accept yourself as you are and live for you.