“It was something he never let us forget,” she recalled.

As the director of education and outreach for the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Cullen is building a legacy of her own as a civil rights leader and public servant.

In her current position, Cullen monitors a multi-million dollar federal budget and oversees the national coordination of all fair housing education and outreach campaigns to protect all Americans from housing discrimination.

“It’s not a job (where) you get a lot of public recognition, but you see the impact when someone can get a home with no regard to what color they are, what religion they practice or their sexual identity,” she said.

In 2013, Cullen worked with the multinational information technology giant, Hewlett-Packard Company, to launch the first federal housing discrimination mobile app. The mobile app allows users to obtain information on federal fair housing laws and submit housing discrimination complaints from their smart phones.

Cullen was recently awarded the High Heels Award by the Atlanta-based Trumpet Award Foundation for her commitment to civil rights and higher education.

“I was thrilled to get that recognition especially from someone like Xernona Clayton who created the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame. I was just overwhelmed,” she said.

Outside of her daily commitments to upholding the Fair Housing Act, Cullen is an adjunct professor at Bowie State University, where she has taught courses in labor relations law, contracts and conflict management.

“Public service and civil obligation is what we have to do. It’s not something that you want to do. It’s something that you need to do,” she stressed.

“Freedom is not free and a lot of people made many sacrifices for us to be able to enjoy the privileges and freedoms that we have now, so we must not forget that. A way to pay them back for what they sacrificed is to give back to the community. That’s a commitment I encourage my students to (keep),” she said.

Prior to working at HUD, Cullen was a policy officer in labor management at the U.S. Department of Labor. She graduated from North Carolina A&T in 1996 with a degree in economics and holds a Juris Doctorate from Indiana University School of Law. When she’s not at school, work or with her family, Cullen mentors young girls through the Board of Black Professional Women literacy program.

“I wouldn’t be where I am and I wouldn’t have the skill set or the basis for understanding civil rights had I not gone to an HBCU,” she said.

“There’s just a sense of pride that’s really hard to explain unless you have that HBCU experience. A&T helped me understand that I can do anything and I still believe that,” Cullen said.

By: Courtney J. Jackson