The narrator witnesses Clifton’s racially motivated murder at the hands of white police officers. He can’t get in touch with the Brotherhood so he organizes Clifton’s funeral on his own initiative. The narrator’s actions makes the black community’s anger against the state of race relations. The Brotherhood then reprimands the narrator for his act of independence. The narrator then realizes that the Brotherhood was never really doing anything to help the black community, they just pretended to.
Falling Action:
The riots break out in Harlem; everyone releasing the pent-up anger that has gathered since Clifton’s funeral. The narrator encounters Ras who calls for him to be lynched. The narrator is running from Ras and the police. The narrator falls into a manhole, and remains underground in “hibernation”.
Resolution:
While being underground, the narrator grows from his knowledge and comes to a very important and liberating realizations. He decides to write down his lessons. He realizes that his identity comes from both the inside and outside of himself and that he must make a balance in order to maintain his life in a racist society. Although he continues to call himself an invisible man, he now works out a more enabling way of seeing his being invisible; one that will allow him to act in society.