Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison 1914-1994 Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1914, Ralph Ellison was still just a young child when the Harlem Renaissance began to emerge on the national scene, and a teenager when the era had begun to dwindle; however, he was a Renaissance Man in quite another sense--as Gates points out. While still a child he became interested in music, learning to play the trumpet among other instruments. Ellison's artistic interests expanded at Tuskegee Institute, where he discovered a love of literature and applied art. However, his time at Tuskegee was cut short, Gates adds, due to funding, and the fact that Ellison became disillusioned by Tuskegee and found it "anti-intellectual and overly accommodationist." He soon found new horizons in New York, where he was introduced to author Richard Wright. The two writers became friends immediately, and several of Ellison's work was published with Wright's encouragement" (Gates, et al. 1535). Though E...