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9 Kawaida Totalizing the Commitment IN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Jones writes that the initial days of his return to Newark were spent warding off despair. Part of this was due to the demise of the Black Arts Repertory Theater/School (BART) and his breakup with Vashti, the young “fly” black woman who had been his female companion since the end of his marriage to Hettie. In addition, shortly before he left BART, Jones had unintentionally impregnated Bumi, an eighteen-year-old woman and a member of an African dance troupe. Attracted to her youthful sensuality, Jones desired her only as a momentary sexual liaison.1 Accordingly , he received the announcement of her pregnancy as dismal news, particularly after she steadfastly proclaimed, against his wishes, that she had no intention of obtaining an abortion. Instead, she expected Jones to take responsibility for her and their child and was devastated by his hesitation to do so. Feeling guilty about his disregard for the young woman’s feelings, Jones finally allowed her to join him in Newark, where they lived in a run-down hotel frequented by pimps, prostitutes, and impoverished black migrants. Angry at himself and his irresponsible sexual promiscuity, Jones felt trapped. Depression ensued. In an attempt to escape his rapidly constricting personal life, Jones returned to his dream of bringing black art to the black masses. He rented a large but inexpensive house in central Newark, and with several friends and neighborhood youths, he cleaned and painted it. They tore down walls and created a theater on the first floor. Spirit House was born. Having learned from the experience of the Black Arts Repertory Theater/School,Jones was far more knowledgeable about the particular demands of a Black Arts center. This time, he was on familiar turf and had fewer illusions about the need to tolerate the frenetic and destructive individuals who might be attracted to his new institution. Jones organized the Afro-American Festival of the Arts, which was held in a neighborhood public park. Using his BART contacts, Jones was able to attract prominent black artists, critics, and political activists to the event, 291 including Harold Cruse, Stokely Carmichael, and New York’s Yoruba Temple Dancers and Drummers. The festival attracted sizable crowds, and equally important, it notified other Black Arts activists in Newark that LeRoi Jones had come home. Soon he began to interact with a group of like-minded, local Black Arts activists. Shortly thereafter, Jones and his Spirit House colleagues began to publish a magazine that featured the Black Arts. A repertory theater followed, and Jones produced two plays that he had written while at BART, A Black Mass and Jello. One of the lead actresses in A Black Mass, Sylvia Robinson , became, in a short time, his second wife and the most enduring and intimate companion of his life. SYLVIA ROBINSON Before she met Jones, Sylvia Robinson had been active in the emerging Black Arts movement in Newark. Jones wrote that Robinson, a dancer as well as an actress,“had a whole life as cultural worker in Newark that paralleled what we were trying to do at the black arts.”2 When they first met, Robinson, the mother of two,was in the process of divorcing her husband.Already divorced, Jones was the disengaged father of three children, and another child was on the way. A budding couple, LeRoi and Sylvia also had to decide what to do with the young expectant mother who was living with Jones on the third floor at Spirit House. Jones tried to persuade the two women to enter into a polygamous relationship with him. He later attributed his overtures to his deeply implanted sexism as well as his attraction toYoruba cultural nationalism.3 But neither Robinson nor the young woman would consent to Jones’s proposal. Robinson decided to leave Jones, but then tragedy struck. Bumi, the young expectant mother became ill and was rushed to the hospital where she remained in a coma until she died. For LeRoi and Sylvia, her death was a fortuitous calamity, as it enabled them to cultivate an intimate relationship. But Jones claims that for years, he and Sylvia felt extremely guilty about the young woman’s death precisely because they knew that they had benefited from it.4 In her memory, Jones wrote “Bumi,” which reads in part: I forgotten who I is I wanted to be some body and lost it I lost my self I lost love 292...

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