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Ellison was born in Oklahoma and headed to Harlem at the age of 23, intent on becoming a sculptor. But there he met Langston Hughes, who swayed Ellison into writing by introducing him to many of the writers who were the heart of the Harlem Renaissance in its later years, including those who were political with Communist sympathies. His major work is the 1952 novel Invisible Man, about an unnamed character who struggles his way through the Deep South and New York City in the 1930s, and who, like most of Ellison’s characters but unlike other African-American literary characters of the time, is educated, self-aware, and articulate (Seidlitz). Ellison also differed from his contemporaries in exploring racism not just in the American South but the North as well, throwing a light on their similarities and differences. (Mahoney) Ellison left behind several mostly unfinished manuscripts when he died, which have since been finished and published.
Baldwin had his finger on the pulse of the American issues of his time. His work, including novels, plays, and essays, were complex works mixing narrative, a keen eye for human problems, and psychology with civil rights, homosexuality, and other political issues of his time. A major theme running throughout those works was the struggle for acceptance—sometimes from society, sometimes from loved ones, sometimes accepting themselves, and always against difficult circumstances and long odds. (Jones) His involvement with the civil rights movement began by interviewing people in hotspots of desegregation in 1957, and he never stopped from there, joining marches, speaking to politicians, and spearheading calls for civil disobedience.
