Ralph Ellison was the grandson of slaves. He was born in Oklahoma in 1914, where he was also raised (Tulsa). He developed a love for jazz music at a very young age, and Ellison maintained a circle of friends that included many jazz musicians. He studied two instruments - the coronet, and the trumpet, with intentions of becoming a "jazz man" himself. He studied music at the prominent black college founded by Booker T. Washington, the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. After a three-year period, he left Alabama for New York, where he became friends with such African-American writers as Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes. He worked as an editor of an African-American newsletter before serving during World War II as a Merchant Marine. After his stint in the war, Ellison received a fellowship, which he used to fund his only novel ever completed - Invisible Man. The full, complete manuscript...
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