Carrie Allen McCray

Carrie Allen McCray (October 4, 1913 – July 25, 2008) was an African-American writer. She was from Lynchburg Virginia and became the first board of directors of the South Carolina Writers Workshop.

Early and family life Carrie Allen was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, October 4, 1913, and raised in that city, where she came to know poet Anne Spencer, a friend of her mother. Initially educated at the Virginia Seminary Primary School, she was the ninth of ten children. Her father, William Patterson Allen, was a lawyer. One of her major influences noted in her reflection was her mother. In one of her reflections mentioned how her most memorable experiences, which was during the sixties helping to organize grass roots organizations in Talladega, Alabama, "first Pullim Street Center, then Community Life Institute."

Meanwhile, in 1940 she married Winfield Scott Young, and they had a son, Winfield Scott Young Jr., before the marriage ended in divorce in 1945. She later married John H. McCray, a Florida-born journalist and civil and political rights activist in South Carolina, and moved to Columbia, South Carolina by 1986. Her second husband organized the Black Progressive Democratic Party after World War II and claimed victory for electing moderate Olin Johnson over segregationist Strom Thurmond during Massive Resistance in the 1960s. including frightening telephone calls the Allen family received after moving into a white neighborhood in New Jersey, and her travels in the South in the 1960s with Indira, an Indian friend, particularly visiting a cousin at Auburn University. She mentioned in an interview that when she was seven then and her father was receiving frightening calls and had been warned about a possible cross-burning. Her mother, who bought her books of the Harlem Renaissance poets and Anne Spencer the poet were her greatest influences in relation to writing. McCray always thought of herself as a teacher and social worker, but always loved to write. Carrie was a little girl at the time but the tragedy of Ota Benga stuck with her and now lives in her provocative and poignant poem. However, Carrie Allen McCray did not pass without leaving her legacy behind. She inspired other writers including many from the Harlem Renaissance, to simply start writing without worrying about others opinions. She encouraged new writers to publish their works with the understanding that perfection is unattainable and that they will receive valuable feedback from fellow authors. McCray has been published in articles and magazines such as The Squaw Review, Ms. Magazine, and River Styx and has also been anthologized in Moving Beyond Words (1994) and The Crimson Edge: Older Women Writings (1996).