Showing results by author "Ralph Conner" in All Categories

The Northwest Mounted Police were assigned the duty to preserve law and order along the construction line of the railroad in eastern British Columbia. The greatest danger to the railroad, and to the residents of the area, was an Indian uprising. And old Copperhead, chief of the Sioux was just the man to start one. He was a schemer, the smartest Indian in all the western country. He wanted the white man and the railroad out of eastern British Columbia, home of vast numbers of western Indians. The NWMP soon learned Copperhead wasn’t all talk.

These extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph Ellison and provide a remarkable window into the great writer’s life and work, his friendships, rivalries, anxieties, and all the questions about identity, art, and the American soul that bedeviled and inspired him until his death. They include early notes to his mother, written as an impoverished college student; lively exchanges with the most distinguished American writers and thinkers of his time, from Romare Bearden to Saul Bellow; and letters to friends and family from his hometown of Oklahoma City.