Ralph Ellison's LegacyCall Number: Films on Demand
Publication Date: 1999
In 1952 an unknown African-American writer caught the nation’s attention with his very first book, which begins, "I am an invisible man." In this program, NewsHour correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth examines Ralph Ellison’s legacy on the novel occasion of the publication of Juneteenth, left unfinished at the time of his death. Ellison’s literary executor John Callahan and Professor Charles Johnson—a winner, like Ellison, of The National Book Award—consider the man behind the fame and the impact of the posthumous novel on Ellison’s literary reputation, first established by Invisible Man. (12 minutes)