Black House
After seeing Amiri Baraka's play Dutchman, Bullins felt that Baraka's artistic purpose was similar to his own. As a result, he joined Baraka at "Black House", BAM's cultural center, which included Sonia Sanchez, Huey Newton, poet Marvin X, and others. The Black House strongly believed in the concept of "Protest Theatre". The Black Panthers used Black House as their base in San Francisco, which briefly allowed Bullins to be their Minister of Culture. Eventually, Black House found itself split into two factions. One group considered art to be a weapon and advocated joining with whites to achieve political ends. The other group saw art as a form of cultural nationalism and didn't want to work with whites. Bullins was a part of the latter group, which turned out to be the losing side. As a result, he left.
Read more about this topic: Ed Bullins
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