Lucas E. Morel - Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope: A Political Companion to Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison
and the
Raft of Hope

Ralph Ellison
and the
Raft of Hope

A Political Companion
to Invisible Man

Edited by
LUCAS E. MOREL

Copyright 2004 by The University Press of Kentucky

Paperback edition 2006

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

All rights reserved.

Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

www.kentuckypress.com

10090807065 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Morel, Lucas E., 1964

Ralph Ellison and the raft of hope: a political companion to Invisible man / Lucas Morel.

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8131-2312-7 (hardcover: alk. paper)

1. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible man. 2. Politics and literatureUnited StatesHistory20th century. 3. Political fiction, AmericanHistory and criticism. 4. Ellison, RalphPolitical and social views.

5. African American men in literature. 6. African Americans in literature. I. Title.

PS3555.L625I5356 2004

ISBN-10: 0-8131-9162-9

ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-9162-1

This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

To my youngest son, Ellison Charles Morel

Contents

Lucas E. Morel

James Seaton

Danielle Allen

Lucas E. Morel

Thomas S. Engeman

William R. Nash

Alfred L. Brophy

Kenneth W. Warren

Charles Pete Banner-Haley

Marc C. Conner

Herman Beavers

John F. Callahan

Danielle Allen, Professor of Classics and Political Theory at the University of Chicago; 2001 recipient of a MacArthur fellowship; and author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (Princeton University Press, 2000) and Talking to Strangers: On Little Rock and Political Friendship (University of Chicago, 2004).

Charles Pete Banner-Haley, Associate Professor of History and the former Director of the Africana-Latin American Studies Program at Colgate University and author of The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle Class Ideology and Culture, 19601990 (University Press of Mississippi, 1994).

Herman Beavers, Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania; poet; and author of Wrestling Angels into Song: The Fictions of Ernest J. Gaines and James Alan McPherson (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995).

Alfred L. Brophy, Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law; author of Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation (Oxford University Press, 2002); and editor of the Oklahoma City University Law Review symposium issue on Ralph Ellison and the Law.

John F. Callahan, Morgan S. Odell Professor of Humanities at Lewis and Clark College, author of In the African-American Grain: Call-and-Response in 20th Century Black Fiction (University of Illinois Press, 1988; reprint, 2001); editor of Juneteenth and The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison; and literary executor of Ralph Ellisons estate.

Marc C. Conner, Associate Professor of English at Washington and Lee University and editor of The Aesthetics of Toni Morrison: Speaking the Unspeakable (University Press of Mississippi, 2000).

Thomas S. Engeman, Associate Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago; editor of Thomas Jefferson and the Politics of Nature (University of Notre Dame Press, 2000); author, with Raymond Tatalovich, of The Presidency and Political Science: Two Hundred Years of Constitutional Debate (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); and editor, with Michael Zuckert, of Protestantism and the American Founding (University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming).

Lucas E. Morel, Associate Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University and author of Lincolns Sacred Effort: Defining Religions Role in American Self-Government (Lexington Books, 2000).

William R. Nash, Associate Professor of American Literature and Civilization and Director of African-American Studies at Middlebury College and author of Charles Johnsons Fiction (University of Illinois Press, 2002).

James Seaton, Professor of English at Michigan State University and author of Cultural Conservatism, Political Liberalism: From Criticism to Cultural Studies (University of Michigan Press, 1996).

Kenneth W. Warren, Associate Professor of English and the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago; author of So Black and Blue: Ralph Ellison and the Occasion of Criticism (University of Chicago Press, 2003) and Black and White Strangers: Race and American Literary Realism (University of Chicago Press, 1993).

This volume of scholarly reflections on Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man owes a great deal to my home institution, Washington and Lee University. Special thanks go to Larry Peppers, professor of Economics and dean of the Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics, and Robert Strong, the William Lyne Wilson professor and chair of the Politics Department. Their support of this book stretches back to February 2002, when Washington and Lee University hosted a symposium to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ellisons landmark novel. Most of the essays in this collection took first flight at this symposium. Scholars from a variety of disciplines gathered to take a closer look at the political lessons and aspirations of Invisible Man than had been exhibited to date.

To my colleague in the English Department, Marc Conner, my heartfelt thanks for helping this student of politics negotiate the challenging terrain of the American novel and African-American studies. For assistance with the Ralph Ellison Papers at the Library of Congress, I thank Alice Birney and the literary executor of Ralph Ellisons estate, my friend John Callahan. I am also grateful to Mrs. Fanny Ellison for permission to use quotations from Ralph Ellisons published and unpublished works, and am much obliged to Nancy Kaye, whose wonderful 1982 photograph of Ralph Ellison graces the cover of this book.