TYPED MANUSCRIPT SIGNED: The Descent of Charlie Fuller into Pulitzer Land

[23 July 1982]. Manuscript. Near Fine. TYPED MANUSCRIPT (12 pages) of a critical article on Charles Fuller, concentrating on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play A SOLDIER'S STORY which debuted in 1982, as well as the current nature of Black Theater. Although the play enjoyed a long run, Fuller said it never played on Broadway because he refused to drop the last line, "You'll have to get used to black people being in charge." It was made into a film in 1984 with Fuller's screenplay earning an Academy Award nomination. With a handwritten cover letter from James Hatch of the Hatch-Billops Collection returning the article to Baraka: "I liked the Fuller article; wish we had a counter piece from him [Fuller], but he's too busy in Hollywood." The manuscript has a number of corrections and additions by Baraka and is SIGNED by him at the conclusion with his address and phone number. Some excerpts: "In the 60's one cry that came up repeatedly was the need for black people to build institutions of varying kinds to serve black needs. We were clear that white supremacy institutions could not, by definition, serve black people.... What the creation of institutions has to do with this is that the Black Arts Movement and the Black Theater Movements must be criticized for not having created lasting institutions to do battle with the bourgeois white supremacist created Negro Ensembles, which are exactly that, Ensembles of Negroes pushing Negro Thought for Negroes and 'normal' White people.... The creation of such institutions, of black theaters, periodicals, newspapers, art galleries, concert halls, publishing houses, films is the only thing that can save black artists from making the descent into Pulitzer land, in the sense that what the Pulitzer people are rewarding is a world outlook that serves their own or is identical with it. They are not rewarding writing per se, but ideology!" This article was published in BLACK AMERICAN LITERATURE FORUM, Vol. 17, No. 2, Black Theatre Issue (Summer, 1983), pages 51-54.