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Ralph Ellison, author of the instant classic Invisible Man, once likened the creation of fictional characters to a chief aim of democratic society: "the development of conscious, articulate citizens."1 Both the writer and a free society are responsible to give voice, to give "eloquence," to their respective dramatis personae.2 And as Ellison liked to remind us, the American cast of characters has always included the Negro. Ellison saw in the Negro American culture, displayed in the verve and elegance of "jazzmen and prize fighters, ballplayers and tap dancers," an "affirmation of life beyond all question of our difficulties as Negroes."3 So for Ellison, "individuality is still operative beyond the racial structuring of American society."4
When critics chastised Ellison for preaching individualism to blacks instead of racial solidarity, he referred them to the jazz giants of old, whom he called the "stewards of our vaunted American optimism."5 Ellison argued that blacks took pride in Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges "not because they were anonymous bumps within the crowd, but because they were themselves." He reminded the critics, "If the white society has tried to do anything to us, it has tried to keep us from being individuals," and noted the irony in black leaders decrying black individualism while they themselves were "doing all they can to suppress all individuality but their own."6 Proud to be a Negro American, Ellison still did not believe true freedom or human excellence would be found down the road to color consciousness: "I recognize that we are bound less by blood than by our cultural and political circumstances."7
Speaking of the American character, Ellison drew upon jazz to explain its development: "In this process our traditions and national ideals move and function like a firm ground bass, like the deep tones of your marvelous organ there in the chapel, repeating themselves continually while new melodies and obbligatoes sound high above. In literature this is the process by which the values, ideals, assumptions and memories of unique individuals and groups reach out across the divisions wrought by our national diversity and touch us all."8
In his introduction to Living with Music, Robert O'Meally recounts asking a question of Ralph Ellison that gets to the heart of Ellison's literary project: "Don't you think the Harlem Renaissance failed because we failed to create institutions to preserve our gains?" To which Ellison replied, "No. We do have institutions. We have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And we have jazz." Ellison implied that the Harlem Renaissance, or any other attempt by Negroes to put their stamp on American fine arts, needed no extra vehicle for securing its successes beyond the oldest and surest institutions of social freedom in America—the Constitution and Bill of Rights—and the musical genre of jazz. Without the Constitution and Bill of Rights as political touchstones for freedom of expression, even within a racially prejudiced society, the Negro's scope to create great art would be even more limited. Ellison was always quick to remind his audience, black or white, not to overlook what Negroes already possessed and could claim as their own.
But why the Constitution and Bill of Rights? How were these the possession of a historically marginalized segment of America? Ellison believed these pillars of American government must be claimed by and for black Americans to the same extent as whites in order to affirm the equal humanity and American-ness of the Negro. Ellison's dream, like that of Martin Luther King, Jr., was "deeply rooted in the American dream." No white bigot's ignorance of the text of his own nation's political charter—an ignorance of the very basis of his own freedom—ought to stand in the way of Negro Americans claiming and acting upon that same charter of freedom. That would give up the struggle before it even began, to say nothing of neglecting the effort and sacrifice of "many thousands gone" who had a literal hand (and head and heart) in establishing the American regime.
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