Color

by Countee Cullen

"Color" by Countee Cullen is a poetry collection published in 1925 when the author was just 22 years old. His first book explores the African American experience through poems addressing race, heritage, and identity during the Harlem Renaissance. Cullen grapples with the painful separation from African culture caused by slavery and examines the psychology of being Black in America. The collection includes "Heritage," one of his most celebrated poems, which wrestles with ancestral connections to a distant motherland known only through stories passed down through generations.