Born in Philadelphia, in 1935, Ed Bullins was raised with a knowledge of the streets. In time he became an active participant in the black nationalist movement. As he became increasingly mistrustful of ideologies, however, he turned his focus almost entirely to the theater as a means of expressing the needs and aspirations of his people. By the mid-1960s, he had established himself, along with Imamu Amiri Baraka, as a leading playwright in America's black theater.
In works such as Clara's Ole Man (1965), Goin'a Buffalo (1968), and In the Wine Time (1968), Bullins depicts the lives of people in the ghetto and shows himself able to turn even their obscene talk into a special kind of poetry. The Fabulous Miss Marie (1971) depicts the black middle class with equal poignancy and was awarded an Obie. The Taking of Miss Janie (1975), a study of American race relations, won the New York Drama Critics Award.
Bullins has received two Guggenheim fellowships, three Rockefeller grants, and a Creative Artists' Public Service Program Award. In 1976 he received an honorary doctorate from Columbia College in Chicago.
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