By Salma El-Sakka
Bard College in New York's Hudson Valley has opened a center dedicated to the literary legacy of Ralph Ellison, funded by a $3.6 million donation from the Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust.
Ellison's connection to Bard
Ellison taught American and Russian literature at Bard from 1958 to 1961. The trust's legal representative, Donn Zaretsky, said the college was chosen because of Ellison's genuine history there and its understanding of the breadth of his interests.
Ellison's life and work
Born in Oklahoma City in 1913, Ellison studied music at Tuskegee Institute before moving to New York City, where friendships with Langston Hughes, Albert Murray, and Richard Wright inspired his turn to fiction. After "Invisible Man," he published the essay collection "Shadow and Act" and worked on a second novel, "Juneteenth," released posthumously after his death in 1994.
Transfer of intellectual rights
The donation transfers all intellectual rights and royalties from Ellison's oeuvre to Bard, including his 1952 novel "Invisible Man," which made him the first Black author to win the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. The trust will wind down and close following the transfer.
Center programs and commemoration
The Ralph Ellison Center, which opened late last month on the Annandale-on-Hudson campus, plans a yearlong commemoration in 2027 for the 75th anniversary of "Invisible Man." Flagship programs include biannual lectures, a 10-week student internship for archival work, and a digital archival effort with the Library of Congress.
Internship trains future archivists
The internship program, launched this past summer, selected six students from Bard and partner historically Black colleges and universities. Participant Bee Hitz described the digitization work as painstaking but valuable preparation for graduate studies in library sciences.
Community outreach planned
Director Nicholas Alton Lewis said the center aims to serve as a "salon" for intellectual gathering. Plans include developing a community-based curriculum with Bard's Institute for Writing & Thinking, extending to Bard High School Early College, the Bard Prison Initiative, microcolleges, and 66 public libraries in the Hudson Valley Public Library System.
