Author Bio

Ralph Ellison was born March 1, 1914 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was the son of Lewis and Ida Ellison, who were originally from the South. Both of their parents were slaves and the couple moved West in hopes of their children avoiding the racism and slave system in the South. Ellison was raised in a relatively unbiased society. Lewis Ellison passed away in 1917 and his passing left Ralph’s family extremely poor. His mother began working as a stewardess at the Avery Chapel Afro-Methodist Episcopal Church and the family moved into the parsonage. This brought Ellison close to the minister’s library. Ellison’s love of literature was pre-destined as his father named him after Ralph Waldo Emerson and hoped that he’d grow up to a be a poet. Reading was encouraged throughout his youth, and his mother would often bring him books and magazines from the homes she tended. A black episcopal priest in the city challenged the white custom of banning blacks from the library and the custom was overturned. A plethora of literature was at the finger tips of Ellison after this decision was made. Because of how he was raised, Ellison grew up with the belief that he could do anything he wanted with his life. He wanted to be a Renaissance man and have many skills. Ellison attended the Frederick Douglass School in Oklahoma and completed an intensive music program for 12 years and then in 1933, left Oklahoma for Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to continue studying music. Alabama expanded his knowledge on his country with race. T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” with its lyricism influenced him greatly in his writing. Realizing the lack of African American literature, Ellison began to experiment with the power of the word. He used his experiences from Tuskegee and the injustices he encountered to structure his writings for "Invisible Man." In 1936, Ellison moved to Harlem, New York. He couldn’t afford his education and left school during his third year. He was in New York briefly playing trumpet to earn money until the death of his mother. He went to Ohio for the funeral and returned to New York. While there, he met with writer and poet Richard Wright. Wright helped Ellison get a job with Federal Writers’ Project. This experience created an interest in Ellison for folklore and distinctly African American collection with rhymes and games and stories. It enriched his knowledge of American culture and added to his experiences in Oklahoma and Alabama. Ellison began to incorporate Twain, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, and Hemingway in his work during the start of the War. In 1952, he published "Invisible Man." He received the National Book Award, Russwarm Award, and the election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1970, Ellison became the Albert Schweitzer professor of Humanities at New York University. Ellison passed away from cancer in 1994.