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Primary Source Sets
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
An audio recording of Ralph Ellison testifying before the US Senate about Harlem, 1966.

An audio recording of Ralph Ellison testifying before the US Senate about Harlem, 1966.

In 1966, Ralph Ellison testified on the topic of social conditions in Harlem in front of the Senate Committee on Government Operations’ subcommittee on executive reorganization. The committee was chaired by Senator Abraham Ribicoff, former governor of Connecticut. Ellison discusses coming to New York City during the Great Depression and learning to navigate where African Americans were and were not welcome. He also describes the difference between race relations in the rural South and race relations in the urban North.

Citation Information
Excerpt from “Harlem by Ellison and Powell,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/9fc8dcf0f8bf8d03a9e913f582a8b018.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of Pacifica Radio Archives via American Archive of Public Broadcasting and Digital Commonwealth.

Tips for Students

For this source, consider:

  • the author's point of view
  • the author's purpose
  • historical context
  • audience

Item 12 of 13 in the Primary Source Set Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Previous ItemNext Item
A poster of the boxer Jack Johnson, circa 1910.
A photograph of Jack Johnson and wife, circa 1905-1915.
A 1904 photograph of Booker T. Washington.
An excerpt from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois about double consciousness, 1903.
The Negro Motorist Green Book, 1950.
A theatrical poster for Neil O'Brien as a blackface minstrel performer, 1915.
A 1921 collage of newspaper clippings about Marcus Garvey and African American activism.
A 1939 memo about “The Negro Population of Philadelphia and Sub-Standard Housing Conditions.”
The painting Moon over Harlem by William H. Johnson, circa 1943-1944.
An excerpt from FBI files on Ralph Ellison’s communist activities, 1950-1964.
A typed quotation from Invisible Man.
An audio recording of Ralph Ellison testifying before the US Senate about Harlem, 1966.
An excerpt from a 1992 episode of the PBS television program “Main Street, Wyoming” that discusses Invisible Man.

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