Invisible Man

by

Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison

• 3/1/1919- 4/16/1994• Raised in Oklahoma-his parents wanted to

keep him away from the racially unstable South

• Took him 7 years to write Invisible Man• Studied music at Tuskegee University and

experienced what it meant to be “black” in the South.

Jim Crow South

Being Black in America Between 1880 and 1960.

What were Jim Crow Laws?

From the 1880s into the 1960s, most American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). Many states could impose legal punishments on people for mingling with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep blacks and whites separated.

The "Jim Crow" figure was a fixture of the minstrel shows that toured the South; a white man made up as a black man sang and mimicked stereotypical behavior in the name of comedy.

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=crow

Another in a series of racist posters attacking Radical Republican exponents of black suffrage, issued during the 1866 PA gubernatorial race.

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=crow

Philadelphia, 1889: Removing an African American from a Philadelphia Railway car--after the implementation of Jim Crow, the integration imposed by Reconstruction was stripped away by new laws.

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=crow

The most recognizable trademark in the world by 1900, Bull Durham tobacco ads and trading cards typically depicted caricatures of foolish looking or silly acting blacks to draw attention to its product. Each ad has a green bull somewhere in the image.

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=crow

Two silly looking black hunters have all the equipment for the hunt, but no match with which to light their cigarettes. The hunters are exaggerated images of blacks trying to imitate white people at sport. Notice the trademark green bull in the background. The Bull Durham bull together with the stereotypical images of blacks were a standard part of America's popular culture at the turn of the century.

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=crow

The years just before and after nineteen twenty were difficult for blacks. It was a time of racial hatred. Many whites joined the Ku Klux Klan organization. The Klan often terrorized blacks. Klan members sometimes burned fiery crosses in front of the houses of black families. And they sometimes beat and murdered blacks. The Ku Klux Klan also acted against Roman Catholics, Jews, and foreigners. But it hated blacks most of all.

The costumes and rituals of the new Ku Klux Klan became symbols of terror in America during the first three decades of the twentieth century. (1915). The new Klan spread all over the nation with a membership numbering over three million in the 1920s.

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=crow

Washington DC, Ku Klux Klan Parade

1928

http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/bitter.html

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Lynching of Rubin Stacy for allegedly attacking a white woman. 1935

http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/bitter.html

Some Facilities that Were Separate:

Bus station waiting rooms and ticket windows

Railroad cars or coaches

Restaurants and lunch counters

Schools and public parks

Restrooms and water fountains

Sections of movie theaters

There were even separate cemeteries

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, July 1939: "Colored" water fountains were fixtures throughout the South

during the Jim Crow era.

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=crow

Waco, Texas

1939http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/bitter.html

At the bus station, Durham, North Carolina, 1940.

Greyhound bus terminal, Memphis, Tennessee. 1943.

A rest stop for bus passengers on the way from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee, with

separate entrance for Blacks. 1943.

A sign at bus station, Rome, Georgia. 1943.

A highway sign advertising tourist cabins for Blacks, South Carolina. 1939.

Cafe, Durham, North Carolina. 1939.

Drinking fountain on the courthouse lawn, Halifax, North Carolina. 1938.

Movie theater’s "Colored" entrance, Belzoni, Mississippi. 1939.

Restaurant, Lancaster, Ohio. 1938.

Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. 1939.

Durham, North Carolina

1940

http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/bitter.html

Harlem Renaissance• 1920s to mid 1930s

• Growing African American middle class in Harlem

• Explosion of culture—challenging the racial stereotypes through intellect and art

• Created a new “black identity”"Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not

make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company?

It's beyond me." - Zora Neale Hurston

Themes

• Individuality vs. conformity

• The struggle of being true to yourself

• The struggle of minorities in a white-dominated society

• Rejection of ideology

Motifs

• Stereotypes

• Lies and deception

• Racial prejudice

• Inferior status of women