Murray, Albert (1916-2013), was a Black American essayist, novelist, and critic. Murray played a major and controversial role in intense literary debates about race in America during the second half of the 1900’s. He also was an important commentator on the importance of jazz and the blues in American culture.
During the 1960’s and 1970’s, such Black organizations as the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam favored separation from white America, claiming that Black men and women could never achieve equality in the United States. Murray strongly opposed Black separatism, stating that Black and white cultures are inseparable in American life and that the mix helped give Americans their cultural identity. Murray believed that integration was essential to the progress of Black people in the United States. He refused to call himself an African American, claiming he was simply an American. Murray also used the terms “Negro” and “colored,” which Black separatists considered labels of inferiority.
Murray achieved immediate national attention with his first book, The Omni-Americans: New Perspectives on Black Experience and American Culture (1970). The work is a collection of essays, commentaries, and reviews on politics, literature, and music. In the book, Murray attacked Black separatism and challenged popular assumptions about American identity, race, and art. In another collection, Stomping the Blues (1976), he discussed the central place of jazz and the blues in American culture. In the memoir South to a Very Old Place (1971), he described a trip back to places he knew in his youth. The Library of America published Albert Murray: Collected Essays and Memoirs in 2016, after Murray’s death.
Murray wrote four autobiographical novels focusing on a Black man from Alabama named Scooter. The first novel, Train Whistle Guitar (1974), describes Scooter’s early life in Alabama. The Spyglass Tree (1991) follows Scooter from small-town Alabama through college. In The Seven League Boots (1995), Scooter becomes a successful jazz bassist. In the final novel, The Magic Keys (2005), Scooter settles in New York City, where he becomes part of the Black cultural life of the city.
Murray was the co-author of Good Morning Blues (1985), the autobiography of jazz band leader Count Basie. Murray formed a strong friendship with the Black novelist Ralph Ellison. Their relationship was portrayed in Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray (2000).
Albert Lee Murray was born on May 12, 1916, in the community of Nokomis in Escambia County, Alabama. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1939 and a master’s degree from New York University in 1948. Murray served in the U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Air Force from 1943 to 1962, retiring with the rank of major. While not on active duty and after retiring, Murray taught and lectured at several schools, including Tuskegee, Colgate University, and the University of Massachusetts. After leaving the military, he settled in Harlem with his family and began publishing pieces in American magazines. Murray died on Aug. 18, 2013.
