Ellis Cose is an internationally renowned author with many important works that focus on African Americans and their interactions with society. On December 2, 1994, Ellis Cose published The Rage of a Privileged Class: Why Are Middle-Class Blacks Angry? Why Should America Care?. This book-length essay focuses on the huge black middle class and their difficulties and frustrations. Cose utilizes a series of studies within his book to expose the issues and prejudices that middle-class blacks struggle with on a daily basis. Through surveys and interviews, Cose discovers “an often unspoken rage” according to Steven Kramer, one reviewer of his work. The book was a huge success and widely read.
On May 31, 2011, Ellis Cose published The End of Anger: A New Generation’s Take on Race and Rage. This book was considered by many as the follow-up to his previous book published 17 years ago, The Rage of a Privileged Class. Similar to its predecessor, the book focuses on the black middle-class and finds that the rage discovered previously has undergone a shift in the positive direction. Both of these books garnered significant attention and will be important to solving the issue of racism in America.
Born on February 20, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, Ellis is the only son of Raney Cose and Jetta Cameron Cose. He is married to Lee Llambelis, an attorney. They both currently live in New York City, New York with their daughter, Elisa Marisa. Cose grew up writing from an early age. In his senior year of high school, his teacher Mrs. Klinger forwarded his work to Gwendolyn Brooks who then invited him to join a writing circle. From then, his writing career began to take off rapidly.
After graduating from Lane Technical High School in Chicago in 1968, Cose entered the University of Illinois at Chicago. He studied psychology there and contributed often to the university newspaper. At the age of nineteen, he was invited by Ralph Otwell to join the Chicago Sun-Times. He was the youngest columnist in history to work at a Chicago newspaper.
Cose continued his college education while working at the newspaper and graduated with a B.A. in psychology in 1972. In 1978, he completed his M.A. in science, technology, and public policy at the George Washington University. Throughout this whole time, he continued working at the Sun-Times. In 1979, Cose left the Sun-Times and was employed in a variety of places throughout his career, including USA Today, New York Daily News, and Newsweek. He also created and hosted a radio show called Against the Odds that aired in 2008.