Walt Whitman knew the value of a man. In Song of Myself he begins by saying, “every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.”  What he means is that all men are created equal.  Ellison’s Invisible Man has no rights at all and is given no equality.  He is treated about as inhumanely as any could be, and still be alive.  Every right is stripped from the main character in Invisible Man, and he has no chance, no place in society, and no way to improve his condition.  Walt Whitman, even in 1855 when Song of Myself was written, knew of the injustice that black Americans were forced to endure.  He wrote about it in many of his poems because it was not something that an altruist could deny, in his pursuit of truth and beauty in this world.