together, eventually published posthumously in
1999 as the novel Juneteenth.
Even though a second novel was not published
during his lifetime, Ellison produced a staggering
amount of writing in the form of short stories,
reviews, and criticism. His essays on literature,
art, culture, democracy, and jazz remain some
of the most lucid and sophisticated commentary
on American society. “Richard Wright’s Blues” is
considered one of the most important critiques of
the writer’s work, even though Ellison had a fall-
ing out with his former friend in the 1940s. Essays
like “The Charlie Christian Story” offer insightful
discussions on the role of African-American art,
especially jazz, in mainstream American culture.
Ellison’s essays were collected and published in
two separate works during his lifetime, Shadow
and Act in 1964 and Going to the Territory in 1986.
Ellison’s critical success as an African-American
writer waned in the 1960s partly because of the in-
terpretation of his work as “anti-political.” Writers
and critics of the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT preferred
the overt political messages of Wright to Ellison.
LARRY NEAL specifically targeted Ellison during
this era, echoing other sentiments about Ellison
that suggested he was an Uncle Tom (see SAMBO
AND UNCLE TOM) because he refused to take a pub-
lic stand on the civil rights issues of the 1960s. The
critic revised his position on Ellison by 1990, say-
ing that Ellison “countered” the dark portrait of
African-American life illustrated by Wright with
an image of men and women that was “profoundly
human and blessed with a strong, spiritually sus-
taining culture.”
Ellison may have lived a quiet life publicly,
but he continued to write until his death. He also
spent the last 20 years of his life teaching. After
receiving honorary doctorates from schools such
as Harvard, the College of William and Mary,
Rutgers University, Tuskegee, and the University
of Michigan, Ellison settled in at New York Uni-
versity, where he served as the Albert Schweitzer
Professor of the Humanities from 1970 to 1979.
In 1979, NYU named him professor emeritus.
He continued to live in Harlem until his death
on April 16, 1994. Besides Juneteenth, two other
works were published posthumously: Flying Home
and Other Stories and Trading Twelves: Selected Let-
ters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray. The two
writers had been corresponding since their days at
Tuskegee together (though they were several years
apart). Their letters reflect a lifetime spent analyz-
ing American culture and literature and the role of
the African-American artist.
Ellison’s life illuminates the “infinite possibili-
ties” that the narrator of Invisible Man believes
are hidden in the darkness that has shrouded the
history of African Americans—the “invisibility”
of their life in the mainstream consciousness. The
epic work’s landscape is American culture and his-
tory. Its examination of democracy and the quest
for identity are prototypically American in the tra-
dition of the great writers Ellison loved, such as
Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and especially
Herman Melville. But Ellison’s unnamed protago-
nist, unlike the heroes of other classic American
novels, is left still wondering who he is and where
he belongs. Having traveled through the history of
African Americans during the course of the nar-
rative—through slavery, the Reconstruction, the
Great Migration, BLACK NATIONALISM, the dawn of
the civil rights era—the titular character remains
invisible still. Carrying the baggage of the past—
the SAMBO doll, the leg irons, and so forth—he
searches for a means to move forward, changing his
identity, like the trickster Rinehart, until the world
is enlightened and can finally comprehend the im-
portance of African-American life in the scheme
of American history. Ellison’s love of music, his
love of his culture and its stories, imbues the novel
with the same “profoundly human” quality that he
found in the BLUES, slave narratives, and African-
American folklore. His novel remains a testament
to that spirit even though its readers may feel that
the narrator is still waiting somewhere—under-
ground—for the future to arrive.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baker, Houston. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American
Literature: A Vernacular Theory. Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1984.
Benston, Kimberly W., ed. Speaking for You: The Vi-
sion of Ralph Ellison. Washington, D.C.: Howard
University Press, 1987.Ellison, Ralph 169