Although there was no official documentation, Countee Cullen was effectively adopted by Reverend Fred A. and Carolyn Cullen. Fred Cullen was a pioneer black activist minister whose views had a strong impression on his son. However, Countee Cullen’s poetry often reflects unease towards this strong and conservative Christian training. Cullen won his first writing contest while in high school, with the poem "I Have a Rendezvous with Life." While attending New York University, Cullen wrote most of the poems for his first three volumes, Color, Copper Sun, and The Ballad of the Brown Girl. After graduating from NYU, Cullen earned his Masters degree from Harvard University in English and French. He won more prizes than any other black writer of the I 920s and was among the first African Americans to be recognized as a serious poet. Cullen wrote less after the 1930s, partly due to his position as French teacher at Frederick Douglass Junior High School.