A 1950's perspective of a police killing of an unarmed blackman

I'm reading and listening to Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The reader Joe Morton is excellent. I'm not sure how much he is adding to the story. I think the story and reader are both outstanding. But back to the reader, his additions, infections, and use of verbal expressions are the best. I can't recall a better reader. He surpasses Levar Burton.

The best part of the story is the narrator. I don't want to give away too much or spoil anything. Plus I didn't finish it yet, but the narrator is unique. He weaves in and out of hindsight and nativity, and the story uses an optimal mixture of philosophy and poetic descriptions.

Here is a speech the narrator made at a funeral of an unarmed black man who was shot and killed by a police officer.

"Here are the facts. He was standing and he fell. He fell and he kneeled. He kneeled and he bled. He bled and he died. He fell in a heap like any man and his blood spilled out like any blood; *red* as any blood, wet as any blood and reflecting the sky and the buildings and the birds and the trees, or your face if you'd look into its dulling mirror--and it dried in the sun as blood dries. That's all. They spilled his blood and he bled. They cut him down and he died; the blood flowed on the walk in a pool, gleamed a while, and, after a while, became dull then dusty, then dried. That's the story and that's how it ended. It's an old story and there's been too much blood to excite you. Besides, it's only important when it fills the veins of a living man. Aren't you tired of such stories? Aren't you sick of the blood? Then why listen, why don't you go? It's hot out here. There's the odor of embalming fluid. The beer is cold in the taverns, the saxophones will be mellow at the Savoy; plenty good-laughing-lies will be told in the barber shops and beauty parlors; and there'll be sermons in two hundred churches in the cool of the evening, and plenty of laughs at the movies. Go listen to 'Amos and Andy' and forget it. Here you have only the same old story. There's not even a young wife up here in red to mourn him. There's nothing to give you that good old frightened feeling. The story's too short and too simple. His name was Clifton, Tod Clifton, and he was unarmed, and his death was as senseless as his life was futile. He had struggled for Brotherhood on a hundred street corners and he thought it would make him more human, but he died like any dog in a road."

You can read the whole scene here.