Sam Greenlee

Samuel Eldred Greenlee, Jr. (July 13, 1930 – May 19, 2014)[1] was an American writer of fiction and poetry. He is best known for his novel The Spook Who Sat by the Door, first published in March 1969 in London by the recently founded small imprint Allison & Busby (with Ghanaian-born Margaret Busby as its editor), having been rejected by dozens of mainstream publishers,[2] and received much critical attention, including extracts being printed in The Observer newspaper.[1] The novel was subsequently made into the 1973 movie of the same name, directed by Ivan Dixon and co-produced and written by Greenlee,[3] that is now considered a "cult classic".[2]

BornSamuel Eldred Greenlee, Jr.
(1930-07-13)July 13, 1930
Chicago, Illinois, US
DiedMay 19, 2014(2014-05-19) (aged 83)
Chicago, Illinois, US
EducationEnglewood High School; University of Wisconsin; University of Chicago
Notable worksThe Spook Who Sat by the Door (1969)
Notable awardsPoet laureate of Chicago
ChildrenNatiki Montano

Life and work

Early years and education

Sam Greenlee was born in St. Luke's Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, to an African-American family. His parents were singer and dancer Desoree Alexander and railroad man and union activist Samuel Greenlee.[1] He grew up in west Woodlawn.[4] He attended Englewood High School, and in 1948 won a track scholarship to the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1952 with a BS degree in political science.[4] He was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity (Beta Omicron 1950). He served in the United States Army from 1952 to 1954, earning the rank of first lieutenant, and from 1954 to 1957 did graduate studies in international relations at the University of Chicago.[4]

U.S. foreign service

In 1957, Greenlee began a career with the United States Information Agency (USIA), and, as one of the first black officials to work overseas,[2] served in Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Greece between 1957 and 1965. In 1958 he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for bravery during the 14 July Revolution in Baghdad.[5]

Leaving the USIA after eight years, he stayed on in Greece where he undertook further study (1963–64) at the University of Thessaloniki, and lived for three years on the island of Mykonos.

The Spook Who Sat by the Door

It was while living on Mykonos that Greenlee began to write his first and best known novel, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, which was the story of a black man, Dan Freeman, who is recruited as a CIA officer and having mastered the skills of espionage then uses them to lead a black guerrilla movement in the United States.[4][6] Greenlee drew on his own background and his career in the US Foreign Service,[7] and in a 1973 interview with the Washington Post he said: "My experiences were identical to those of Freeman in the CIA....Everything in that book is an actual quote. If it wasn't said to me, I overheard it."[2] The novel's title incorporates a double-entendre, "spook" being an ironic street term for a black person as well as slang for "spy".[7]

Rejected multiple times by mainstream publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, The Spook Who Sat by the Door was eventually published in London in March 1969 by fledgling companyAllison and Busby, Greenlee having been introduced to young Ghanaian-born publisher Margaret Busby by a mutual friend in Mykonos.[1] The book achieved significant critical attention and was subsequently published in the US by Richard W. Baron.[8]

Greenlee later co-wrote (with Mel Clay) the screenplay for what became the 1973 film The Spook Who Sat by the Door that he co-produced with director Ivan Dixon, and which is considered "one of the more memorable and impassioned films that came out around the beginning of the notoriously polarizing blaxploitation era."[9] In 2011, an independent documentary entitled Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of the Spook Who Sat by the Door was filmed by Christine Acham and Clifford Ward, about the making and reception of the Spook film,[10] in which Greenlee spoke out about the suppression of the film soon after its release.[11][12] In a chance meeting with Aubrey Lewis (1935–2001), one of the first Black FBI agents to have been recruited in 1962 by the FBI,[13] Greenlee was told that The Spook Who Sat by the Door was required reading at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.[14]

Other writings

Other works by Greenlee include Baghdad Blues, a 1976 novel based on his experiences traveling in Iraq in the 1950s and witnessing the 1958 Iraqi revolution,[15] Blues for an African Princess (a 1971 collection of poems), and Ammunition (poetry, 1975). He also wrote short stories, plays (although he found no producer for any of them),[4] and the screenplay for a film short called Lisa Trotter (2010), a story adapted from Aristophanes' Lysistrata.[16]

Later years

Greenlee lived in Ghana and Spain for some years, before returning to Chicago in the late 1980s.[2] In 1990 he was named the Poet Laureate of Chicago.[17][1] He taught screenwriting at Columbia College Chicago and hosted a talk show on WVON radio.[18][14] He also worked on an autobiography that was to be called Sam's Blues: Adventures of a Travelling Man.[1]

In 2018, Greenlee was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.[19]

Death

On May 19, 2014, Greenlee died in Chicago at the age of 83.[20] On June 6, 2014, Chicago's DuSable Museum of African American History sponsored an evening of celebration in his honor, attended by his daughter Natiki Montano.[21]

Bibliography
Novels
Poetry
  • Blues for an African Princess, Chicago: Third World Press, 1971.
  • Ammunition!: Poetry and Other Raps (introduction by Andrew Salkey), London: Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1975.
  • Be-Bop Man/Be-Bop Woman, 1968–1993: Poetry and Other Raps, Cambrea Heights, NY: Natiki, 1995.
Short stories
  • "Yes, We Can Sing", Negro Digest, 15.2 (December 1965), pp. 65–69.
  • "The Sign", Negro Digest, 15.4 (February 1966), pp. 61–66.
  • "Summer Sunday", Negro Digest, 15.11 (September 1966), 60–61.
  • "Autumn Leaves", in Negro Digest 16.3 (January 1967), pp. 69–73.
  • "The D.C. Blues", Negro Digest, 18.8 (June 1969), 86–92.
  • "Sonny's Seasons", Black World, 19.12 (October 1970), pp. 58–63.
  • "Sonny's Not Blue", in Woodie King (ed.), Black Short Story Anthology, New York: Signet, 1972, p. 91–96.
  • "Blues for Little Prez", in Black World, 22.10 (August 1973), pp. 54–62. Reprinted in Sascha Feinstein and David Rife (eds), The Jazz Fiction Anthology, Indiana University Press, 2009, pp. 205–13.

References
  1. Margaret Busby, "Sam Greenlee obituary", The Guardian, June 2, 2014.
  2. Matt Schudel, "Sam Greenlee, whose movie 'The Spook Who Sat by the Door' became a cult classic, dies", The Washington Post, May 21, 2014.
  3. "Sam Greenlee (1930–2014)", IMDb (Internet Movie Database).
  4. Rosalind Cummings, "Local Lit: the relaxed rage of Sam Greenlee", Chicago Reader, April 14, 1994.
  5. Adam Meyer, "Sam Greenlee", in Emmanuel S. Nelson (ed.), Contemporary African American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.
  6. DeWayne Wickham, "Sam Greenlee's Book Is Still Making a Statement", ChickenBones: A Journal for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes, September 25, 2003.
  7. Karen Grigsby Bates (May 22, 2014). "Remembering Sam Greenlee Through His Most Famous Book". Retrieved August 1, 2023.
  8. Peart, Andrew (February 27, 2023). "'I won't have anything to do with amoral dudes': Sam Greenlee, X'57, distinguished himself as a Foreign Service Officer, then found his true mission as a writer ready to challenge readers". UChicago News. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
  9. Neil Drumming, "The filmmaker who gave birth to blaxploitation: Sam Greenlee’s complicated racial legacy", Salon, May 20, 2014.
  10. "Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of the Spook Who Sat by the Door" (2011), IMDb.
  11. Nina Metz, "Sam Greenlee, author of 'Spook Who Sat By the Door,' dead at 83", Chicago Tribune, May 19, 2014.
  12. Tambay A. Obenson, "RIP Sam Greenlee - Author Of 'The Spook Who Sat By The Door' Dies At 83 (Listen To His Words Of Wisdom)", Indiewire, May 19, 2014.
  13. Richard Goldstein, "Aubrey Lewis, 66, Athlete Who Was an F.B.I. Pioneer", The New York Times, December 13, 2001.
  14. Gregg Reese, "Radical novelist Sam Greenlee dies at 83", Our Weekly (Los Angeles), May 22, 2014.
  15. "Novelist Sam Greenlee Dies in Chicago", ABC News, May 20, 2014.
  16. "Lisa Trotter" (2010) at IMDb.
  17. "Black History Mobile Museum 101 and Author Sam Greenlee", Xavier University, January 15, 2010.
  18. "Sam Greenlee, late author of 'The Spook Who Sat by the Door,' dead at 83", Hyde Park Herald, May 21, 2014.
  19. "Samuel Eldred Greenlee, Jr.: Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Winner". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
  20. "Writer, Filmmaker Sam Greenlee Dies". Ebony. May 19, 2014.
  21. Taki S. Raton, "Chicago’s DuSable Museum celebrates life of writer and filmmaker Sam Greenlee", Milwaukee Community Journal, June 19, 2014.
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