Ida Millsap, originally from White Oak, Georgia, met and married Lewis Ellison in Abbeville. A political activist, Ida Ellison--or "Brownie," as she was commonly called--canvased Negro voters for Eugene Debs's Socialist party during the gubernatorial campaign of 1914, the same year her son Ralph was born. During the 1930s she went to jail for violating zoning ordinances.
When Ralph was three and his only surviving sibling, Herbert, was four months old, Lewis Ellison died as the result of an accident. Their resourceful mother worked as a domestic in white homes and served as an apartment-house custodian. She brought home magazines and books for the boys to read and was able to supply her sons with chemical and electrical sets, a phonograph and records, a rolltop desk and chair, and a toy typewriter. In terms of material needs and spiritual heritage, Ralph Ellison never considered himself deprived.
Even the policies of Oklahoma's white supremacist governor, "Alfalfa Bill" Murray, did not prevent Ellison from having white friends or doing what he wanted to do. While still a boy, he and a few friends resolved to become Renaissance men.
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