Ralph Ellison Biography, Education, Career, Personal Life

Ralph Ellison Education Background

The young Ralph attended schools in Oklahoma and grew up as a Renaissance Man, someone who derived their deepest identity from culture and intellectualism.

Ralph Ellison Career Journey

After school, he started off as a merchant marine cook during the second world war which shaped some of his later writings. One of his early career stages was when he worked as a writer and researcher at the New York Federal Writers Program. He was exposed to other writers such as Langston Hue before Ralph, later on, went into essay and short-story writing. It was at this time that he was made the managing editor for The Negro Quarterly, a publication that talked about issues of race and how life was for the Black man socially, politically, and economically.

Over his lifetime, some of his published works include Flying Home (a collection of short stories), Going to the Territory(An essay collection), Shadow and Act, and Juneteenth which was released posthumously in 1999. His writings focused on the culture of the Blacks, racism, and other sensitive matters regarding race.

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Ralph Ellison Personal Life 

Ralph was always a young man of culture exploring the arts, literature, and music in its fullness. He used to play the cornet, the trumpet and was a student at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama where he studied music. He hoped to one day compose symphonies and be a full-time Musician.

In his marriage life, Ralph married Fanny McConnell in 1946 staying together until his death in 1964 when he succumbed to pancreatic cancer.