Professor Ralph Ellison

Professor Ralph Ellison

March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994

Writer, Literary Critic, and scholar
the first African-American admitted to the Century Association[

National Book Award winner for his novel “Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison was born at 407 NE 1st Street in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 1, 1913, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap, on March 1, 1913. Ralph Ellison was a celebrated National Book Award winner for his novel “Invisible Man”. He was awarded this title in the year 1953. Even though he was best known for this novel, that is not all Ralph Ellison was. Ralph Ellison, besides being was novelist was an acclaimed writer, critic, and scholar. His famous work on “Shadow and Art” was a collection of social, political, and critical essays. He also wrote Going to the Territory in the year 1986. The New York Times dubbed him “among the gods of America’s literary Parnassus.” A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left upon his death.

Ellison died on April 16, 1994, of pancreatic cancer and was interred in a crypt at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan.

Facts to know about his achievements and honors:

Ray Ellison was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received two President’s Medals (from Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan) and a State Medal from France.

He was the first African-American admitted to the Century Association[ and was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Harvard University. Disillusioned by his experience with the Communist Party, he used his new fame to speak out for literature as a moral instrument.

In 1955 he traveled to Europe, visiting and lecturing, settling for a time in Rome, where he wrote an essay in a 1957 Bantam anthology called A New Southern Harvest. Robert Penn Warren was in Rome during the same period, and the two writers became close friends. Later, Warren would interview Ellison about his thoughts on race, history, and the Civil Rights Movement for his book Who Speaks for the Negro?

In 1958, Ellison returned to the United States to take a position teaching American and Russian literature at Bard College and to begin a second novel, Juneteenth. During the 1950s, he corresponded with his lifelong friend, the writer Albert Murray. In their letters they commented on the development of their careers, the Civil Rights Movement, and other common interests including jazz. Much of this material was published in the collection Trading Twelves (2000). Writing essays about both the black experience and his love for jazz music, Ellison continued to receive major awards for his work.

In 1969, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the following year, he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France and became a permanent member of the faculty at New York University as the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities, serving from 1970 to 1980.

In 1975, Ellison was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his hometown of Oklahoma City honored him with the dedication of the Ralph Waldo Ellison Library. Continuing to teach, Ellison published primarily essays.

in 1984, he received the New York City College’s Langston Hughes Medal.

In 1985, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

In 1986, his Going to the Territory was published; this is a collection of seventeen essays that included insight into southern novelist William Faulkner and Ellison’s friend Richard Wright, as well as the music of Duke Ellington and the contributions of African Americans to America’s national identity. Ralph Ellison monument in front of 730 Riverside Drive, New York City.

Ellison was awarded a special achievement award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards; his artistic achievements included work as a sculptor, musician, photographer, and college professor as well as his writing output.

He taught at Bard College, Rutgers University, the University of Chicago, and New York University. Ellison was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

After Ellison’s death, more manuscripts were discovered in his home, resulting in the publication of Flying Home and Other Stories in 1996. In 1999, his second novel, Juneteenth, was published under the editorship of John F. Callahan, a professor at Lewis & Clark College and Ellison’s literary executor. It was a 368-page condensation of more than 2,000 pages written by Ellison over a period of 40 years. All the manuscripts of this incomplete novel were published collectively on January 26, 2010, by Modern Library, under the title Three Days Before the Shooting.

On February 18, 2014, the USPS issued a 91¢ stamp honoring Ralph Ellison in its Literary Arts series.

A park on 150th Street and Riverside Drive in Harlem (near 730 Riverside Drive, Ellison’s principal residence from the early 1950s until his death) was dedicated to Ellison on May 1, 2003. In the park stands a 15 by 8-foot bronze slab with a “cut-out man figure” inspired by his book Invisible Man.

Source WIKI, Library of Congress, NPL, National Parks