written for CALLALOO the year after Platitudes was
published. In the essay, Ellis argues that the hope
of an African-American literary tradition lies with
writers and artists like himself, who draw on the
totality of their lived experience. Unlike the pre-
vious generations, who chose to mine and incor-
porate the traditions of African-American culture,
the artists of this new generation draw inspiration
from Shakespeare as well as H. Rap Brown.
His next novel, Home Repairs, traces the ad-
ventures of a young black man as he rises from
middle-class geekdom to fame as the host of a
home repair show. Written as a series of journal or
diary entries, the novel challenges stereotypes of
American black men. His third novel, Right Here
Right Now, is a satire of the new age and self-help
movements.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Favor, Martin J. “ ‘Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing,
baby’: Trey Ellis’s Search for New Black Voices.”
Callaloo 16, no. 3 (June 1993): 694–705.
Nicolé N. Aljoe
Ellison, Ralph (1914–1994)
Despite his humble beginnings in Oklahoma,
Ralph Waldo Ellison will be remembered as one
of the most significant writers of the 20th century.
Though he only published one major novel in his
lifetime, the epic INVISIBLE MAN, Ellison produced
a wealth of critical and autobiographical essays,
reviews, and short stories. Invisible Man garnered
the National Book Award, making Ellison the first
African-American author to win the prize, but El-
lison could never achieve another artistic tour de
force like his first novel.
Born to Lewis and Ida Ellison in Oklahoma
City on March 1, 1914, Ellison seemed destined
for a life beyond the expectations of most African
Americans of the time. His father named the child
after his favorite poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
hoping that his son would somehow live up to the
great American writer’s legacy. It was a substan-
tially optimistic dream for young Ellison, given his
family’s past: His paternal grandfather had been
a slave, and his mother’s parents had been share-
croppers. Nevertheless, the Ellisons were deter-
mined to give their sons (Ralph and his younger
brother, Herbert) a diverse and significant educa-
tion. The death of Ellison’s father in an accident in
1916 left the family nearly destitute. Ida worked as
a domestic, and the family settled above a church.
Ida educated the children by any means available,
bringing home discarded books and magazines
from her various jobs.
Oklahoma was segregated during Ellison’s
childhood years. The African-American schools in
Oklahoma tended to support a strong curriculum
for their students, including not only traditional
and classical sources for reading but also African-
American poetry and music. In elementary school,
Ellison was first exposed to a musical education.
His love and passion for music would stay with
him throughout his lifetime, influencing both his
fiction and his criticism. Ida presented him with
his first musical instrument, a cornet, when he
was eight years old. Unable to afford formal musi-
cal training outside of the public schools, Ellison
traded work for private lessons. He also spent a
great deal of time painting and drawing, and even
before his teen years, he wrote stories at his type-
writer. Well before he graduated high school, El-
lison was on his way to becoming a “Renaissance
man.” Upon graduation in 1933, Ellison headed
to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where he
had received a music scholarship. Even though
he had grown up in segregated Oklahoma, he was
not fully prepared for life as an African-American
male in the Deep South. Before he arrived at the
school, white detectives who found him hitching a
ride on the train beat him up.
Tuskegee offered Ellison the tools to achieve
the lifestyle he dreamed of: being a composer and
musician like Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong,
both personal heroes of Ellison’s. Although he
trained in classical music at the institute, he loved
jazz and swing. Both styles found their way into
his own compositions, but his music professor
disliked these contemporary forms. Soon, Ellison
began to rebel against the provincial curriculum
and attitudes that he found in most of the faculty
and the student body of Tuskegee. He found respiteEllison, Ralph 167