#African Amerricans

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The Ballad of the Brown Girl

The Ballad of the Brown Girl was Harlem Renaissance writer Countee Cullen's (1903-1946) first major poem, and this is the first edition of only 500 copies, published in New York and London by Harper & Brothers in 1927, with illustrations and page decorations by the unrelated Art Deco artist Charles Cullen (1887-?). Brown Girl is Countee Cullen's revision of a 17th-century English ballad based on a folk tale featuring two women with different color hair. Cullen's revision alters the descriptions to suggest they are of different races, establishing tensions between romance, segregation, and social hierarchy.

The white Charles Cullen grew up in Brooklyn and was living and working in Manhattan when he met the Black Countee Cullen around 1926 and illustrated four books for the writer: Copper Sun (1927), The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927), an illustrated second edition of Color (1928), and The Black Christ and Other Poems (1929). It seems a significant coincidence that the two would share a last name, but the stars seem to have been aligned. For example, Countee Cullen's birth name was Countee LeRoy Porter and Charles Cullen was born in LeRoy, New York. Coincidence? We don't think so.

View another work by Countee Cullen.

View another book illustrated by Charles Cullen.

View other Black History Month posts.

#Black History Month #Countee Cullen #The Ballad of the Brown Girl #Harper & Brothers #Charles Cullen #poems #African Amerricans #African American writers #illustrated books #Art Deco

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Watch Vice President Kamala Harris' full commencement address to graduates at Tennessee State University on May 7, 2022.

#tennessee state university #kamala harris #hbcusmatter #african amerrican