Ralph ellison education

Ralph Waldo Ellison was born in Oklahoma City on 1 March 1913 (or maybe 1914—scholars are still debating the exact year of his birth). He was the second of three sons born to Lewis Alfred and Ida Millsap Ellison (only two of their sons lived past infancy, though).

The couple earned a modest middle-class living from Lewis's income as an ice and coal vendor, and they believed strongly in the value of education for their children. They named their second son after the Transcendentalist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Lewis proudly told people that his son would grow up to be a poet as well.

Unfortunately, Lewis Alfred Ellison did not live to see his prophecy come true.

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In 1917, when Ralph was a toddler, Lewis was stabbed in the stomach by a shard of ice during an accident at work. He later died of his injuries, leaving Ida to raise two young boys on her own. Ellison's mother took an assortment of domestic jobs to keep her family afloat.

Ellison was keenly aware of all that his f