SOURCE: "The Oklahoma Kid," in The New Republic, Vol. 210, No. 19, May 9, 1994, pp. 23-5.

[Crouch is an American poet, essayist, playwright, educator, editor, and critic. In the following overview of Ellison's life, he relates Ellison's personality, critical reception, and literary aims.]

When Ralph Ellison saddled up the pony of death and took that long, lonesome ride into eternity on Saturday morning, April 16, the quality of American civilization was markedly diminished. He had always traveled on a ridge above the most petty definitions of race and had given us a much richer image of ourselves as Americans, no matter how we arrived here, what we looked like or how we were made. Alone of the internationally famous Negro writers of the last half-century, Ellison had maintained his position as a citizen of this nation. His deservedly celebrated 1952 novel, Invisible Man, his two collections of essays—Shadow and Act and Going...