Author's Background
Ralph Ellison was born on March 1, 1914 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Being left to be raised by his mother after his father was killed from a work related accident, Ralph as well as his brother, Herbert, were left to be raised by his mother Ida Ellison. During his early years, Ellison would describe himself as a “Renaissance man, people who looked to culture and intellectualism as a source of identity” (biography.com). He grew to love music and originally desired to become a composer. At the tender age of nineteen, he enrolled himself at Tuskegee as a music major. As his expenses at Tuskegee grew, he set off to New York in order to finance his education; this eventually leads to his permanent departure of the college. While in New York, he met author Richard Wright, and had planned to move back to Tuskegee; the Great Depression strike hindered his return. While in New York he lands a journalism spot apart of the New York Federal Writers Program, an asset to the Works Progress Administration which employed millions of unemployed individuals during the Great Depression. As his experience grew in writing, he extended his works to several other publications such as “The Negro Quarterly”. With the beginning of World War II in 1939, Ellison joined the Marines as a cook which shifted his thought of journalism towards thought of writing a novel, a novel that would become the award winning “Invisible Man”. After the end of World War II, 1945, the thought of “Invisible Man” became a reality due to his different views on society. He has grown to believe that what separates one from society is education, but soon encounters the harsh reality that color is what separates the “superior” from the “inferior” regardless of what one has to offer as a contribution to society. Although his contributions to the country were highly regarded to many, he was still an African American faced by the prejudiced minds of the average American.