“M” is for McCray, Carrie Allen (1913-2008). Poet, author. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, McCray was reared in Montclair, New Jersey. She attended Talladega College in Alabama, earning a B.A. degree in 1935. She received a master’s degree in social work from New York University in 1955. Although she spent the bulk of her adult life thinking of herself as a teacher and social worker, McCray did not start to think of herself as a professional writer until she was seventy-three—about the same time she took up residence in Columbia. Though best known as a poet, Carrie Allen McCray was also the author of a personal memoir, Freedom’s Child: The Life of a Confederate General’s Black Daughter (1998), which details her discovery that her mother was the child of a Confederate general and his Black servant.
“M” is for McCray, Carrie Allen (1913-2008)
