Coalhouse Walker Jr.
E854051
Coalhouse Walker Jr. is a proud and principled Black pianist in E.L. Doctorow’s novel "Ragtime," whose quest for justice after a racist attack drives much of the book’s central conflict.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Coalhouse Walker Jr. canonical | 1 |
| Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10252869 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Coalhouse Walker Jr. Context triple: [Ragtime, featuresFictionalCharacter, Coalhouse Walker Jr.]
-
A.
Ruchell Magee
Ruchell Magee is an American prison activist and one of the longest-incarcerated political prisoners in the United States, known for his involvement in the 1970 Marin County courthouse incident and his writings on systemic racism and injustice.
-
B.
Hambone Willie Newbern
Hambone Willie Newbern was an early 20th-century American blues guitarist and singer known for his influential country blues recordings.
-
C.
Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee was an influential American blues singer and guitarist best known for his long partnership with harmonica player Sonny Terry and his contributions to the Piedmont blues style.
-
D.
Henry Blanke
Henry Blanke was a prominent German-born American film producer best known for his long association with Warner Bros. and his work on numerous classic Hollywood films from the 1930s through the 1950s.
-
E.
Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson
Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson was an American blues and jazz alto saxophonist and singer known for his gritty tone, swinging style, and influential blend of jump blues and bebop.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Coalhouse Walker Jr. Target entity description: Coalhouse Walker Jr. is a proud and principled Black pianist in E.L. Doctorow’s novel "Ragtime," whose quest for justice after a racist attack drives much of the book’s central conflict.
-
A.
Ruchell Magee
Ruchell Magee is an American prison activist and one of the longest-incarcerated political prisoners in the United States, known for his involvement in the 1970 Marin County courthouse incident and his writings on systemic racism and injustice.
-
B.
Hambone Willie Newbern
Hambone Willie Newbern was an early 20th-century American blues guitarist and singer known for his influential country blues recordings.
-
C.
Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee was an influential American blues singer and guitarist best known for his long partnership with harmonica player Sonny Terry and his contributions to the Piedmont blues style.
-
D.
Henry Blanke
Henry Blanke was a prominent German-born American film producer best known for his long association with Warner Bros. and his work on numerous classic Hollywood films from the 1930s through the 1950s.
-
E.
Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson
Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson was an American blues and jazz alto saxophonist and singer known for his gritty tone, swinging style, and influential blend of jump blues and bebop.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (29)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional character
ⓘ
literary character ⓘ protagonist ⓘ |
| appearsIn | Ragtime NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| appearsInWorkType | novel ⓘ |
| associatedTheme |
American history
ⓘ
civil rights ⓘ dignity ⓘ racism ⓘ social justice ⓘ violence and retaliation ⓘ |
| characterTrait |
principled
ⓘ
proud ⓘ |
| conflictType | racial injustice ⓘ |
| creator | E. L. Doctorow NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| ethnicity | Black ⓘ |
| gender | male ⓘ |
| introducedIn | Ragtime (1975 novel) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| isVictimOf | racist attack ⓘ |
| languageOfWork | English ⓘ |
| literaryGenre | historical fiction ⓘ |
| medium | literature ⓘ |
| name | Coalhouse Walker Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| narrativeRole | drives central conflict in Ragtime ⓘ |
| nationalityInFiction | American ⓘ |
| occupation | pianist ⓘ |
| seeks | justice ⓘ |
| settingCountry |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| settingPeriod | early 20th century ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Coalhouse Walker Jr. Description of subject: Coalhouse Walker Jr. is a proud and principled Black pianist in E.L. Doctorow’s novel "Ragtime," whose quest for justice after a racist attack drives much of the book’s central conflict.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime