Swing/AWT/SWT :: Changing Canvas Returns With NullPointerException

I'm currently having trouble with a Breakout clone that I'm working on when I want to change the scenes of the game. When I start out with the main menu and I hit play, the main menu calls for the StateManager to remove the MainMenu and then to add the GameState to start playing through the levels. But, whenever this is done it just gives a NullPointerException and freezes the game. I know the code for initially starting a State is fine because that is the same way the MainMenu is loaded but there seems to be an issue with changing from one to another...

This is the StateManager class that adds and removes the States/Canvases to and from the JFrame/Main class:
package com.pathtocreating.Breakout_V2.state;

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
public class StateManager {
private ArrayList<State> states;

[Code] ....

The code that calls the change of state in MainMenuState is called in the update method:

if(inputController.isMouseClicked("LeftClick")) {
if(playHover) {
soundManager.playSound("ButtonClick");
BreakoutMain.sm.changeStates("GameState");

[Code] ....

Here is the full stack trace when clicking the area to change states:

Exception in thread "Thread-2" java.lang.NullPointerException
at sun.java2d.SunGraphics2D.validateColor(Unknown Source)
at sun.java2d.SunGraphics2D.<init>(Unknown Source)
at sun.awt.image.SunVolatileImage.createGraphics(Unknown Source)

[Code] ...

It gives that same value both before and after clicking on the region.

Printing out b after the State is changed to GameState gives the following:

java.awt.Component$BltSubRegionBufferStrategy@66116674

I've tried messing around with the order of which things are added/loading from the StateManager but am just failing to see what I did wrong.