Albert L. Murray (May 12, 1916 – August 18, 2013) was an American literary and music critic, novelist, essayist, and biographer. His books include The Omni-Americans, South to a Very Old Place, and Stomping the Blues. Biography Early life Murray was born in Nokomis, Alabama. His biological mother, Sudie Graham, gave him up for adoption to Hugh and Mattie Murray. He grew up in the Magazine Point area of Mobile, Alabama. He attended Tuskegee Institute on scholarship and received a B.S. in education in 1939. One of his fellow students was Ralph Ellison, who would later write the novel Invisible Man (1952), which established his reputation and gave him a lifetime income. Murray briefly enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Michigan before returning to Tuskegee in 1940 to teach literature and composition. In 1941, he married Mozelle Menefee; they had a daughter, Michele. While based at Tuskegee, he completed additional graduate work at Northwestern University in 1941 and the University of Paris in 1951. Military service Murray joined the United States Army Air Forces in 1943 with the desire to "live long enough for Thomas Mann to finish the last volume of Joseph and His Brothers." In 1946, he transferred to the United States Air Force Reserve and enrolled at New York University on the GI Bill, where he received an M.A. in English in 1948. During this period, he became acquainted with Duke Ellington and solidified his close friendship with Ralph Ellison. After briefly returning to his position at Tuskegee, he opted to pursue a more financially remunerative career as a member of the Active Guard Reserve in 1951 to better support his young family. Over the next decade, Murray was stationed in a number of locales (ranging from Morocco to California to Massachusetts) and taught a geopolitics course in the Tuskegee ROTC program. In 1962, after a doctor's exam revealed signs of heart disease, he retired from the United States Air Force as a major. He and his wife moved to the Lenox Terrace Apartments in Harlem, where they were based for the remainder of their lives. Literary career Thereafter, Murray began his literary career in earnest, regularly publishing in such periodicals as Life and The New Leader. The July 3, 1964 edition of Life included his article "The Problem Is Not Just Black and White," which examined seven books on race relations. Murray published