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Books by Sam
Greenlee
The Spook Who Sat By the Door /
Ammunition! Poetry and Other Raps
Baghdad Blues: A Novel /
Blues for an African Princess
"Be-bop man/be-bop woman" 1968-1993: Poetry and
other raps
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How the
Riots Might Have Turned Out
By Cornish Rogers
The most persistent and painful images of the
urban riots of the 60s that I retain are of young black men
grotesquely lying in pools of blood in the gutters, while
policemen or national guardsmen, looking self-satisfied, hover
above them with drawn guns. Although I deplored the senseless
burning and looting, I nonetheless recall within me a visceral
longing that the outcome of the confrontation might be
different.
And now the materialization of that longing
leaps from the screen in
The Spook Who Sat by the Door. A
motion picture recently released by United Artists, it is a
faithful adaptation of Sam Greenlee's bestselling late-60s novel
of the same name. produced by Ivan Dixon and Greenlee (the
latter also coauthored the screenplay), the film tells the story
of Dan Freeman, a young black social worker trained uncover
guerilla tactics as a CIA agent; he decides to organize a black
revolution in the United States -- a revolution to be carried
out under cover of the urban riots. He returns to his native
Chicago and, using all the guile and deftness taught him by the
CIA, in turn trains street gang members in the art of guerilla
warfare.
Linking into his plan the
"brothers" in other major black urban centers, he is
then ready for the incident that triggers the riots and provides
the signal for his revolutionary cadre to go into action. A
series of lightning forays by the young gang members during the
riots comes off convincingly, and the picture ends while the
fighting is still going on but with the clear implication that
the guerillas will not be defeated. (Freeman, played by Lawrence
Cook, reminds his youthful followers that guerillas win when
they are not defeated.)
The picture, like the book, had a difficult
time coming to birth. Greenlee's manuscript had been turned down
by every publisher to whom he submitted it. -- largely because
of its frightening depiction of the "rioters" as
winning. the book was eventually published in England, where it
became a bestseller before it finally came out in the United
States. Since then it has been translated into Swedish, Finnish,
Dutch, Italian, German, Japanese and French.
For the motion picture, Greenlee and Dixon
first had to overcome severe difficulties in funding, and then
had to film it in Gary, Indiana, because the Chicago authorities
refused to cooperate in securing manpower, as well as the
firearms and other equipment called for in the script. Richard
Hatcher, the black mayor of Gary, cooperated fully and
enthusiastically.
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Spook will horrify many white
viewers for a number of reasons. Some will see it as a
possible incitement to blacks to stage an organized
revolution. Others will recoil from the visual depiction
of what were their deepest fears at the time of the
riots -- fears that the blacks were in fact engaged in a
revolt and were out to kill them. On this point the film
makes it clear that the revolution arose not out of hate
toward whites, but out of love for the black people and
their liberation.
In dialogue with the gang members,
Freeman maintains that the revolution may be joined by
whites at a later stage. Further, he warns his young
charges that some of their enemies are black -- a fact
that is highly significant in the plot's denouement.
The most unfortunate reaction that the film may trigger
for some whites, however, is a confirmation of their
conviction about black intentions and thus a
reinforcement of their support for the future use by the
state of excessive force to put down every minor racial
disorder.
Viewing what might have
been may lead some to the judgment that the Nixon
administration's exaggerated efforts to quash dissent in recent
years were appropriate and necessary after all. |
But the risks of negative reactions to the
film are worth taking because, in a paradoxical way, it deals
more realistically with the terrifying but logical extension of
black response to oppression than did the actual events of the
60s. For instance, during the height of the Watts riots in 1965,
a young white female revolutionary rushed into my church office
shaking her head in disappointment. The rioters had ignored her
suggestion that they go out to Hollywood and knock out the huge
electric power station that provided electricity for the entire
area.
They're not really interested in revolt, as
they should be," she said. "They're only interested in
burning down the symbols of their brutalization."
The real riots did demonstrate black
obsession with degrading myths and symbols, rather than with
reality. Spook deals with what might have occurred had black
rage been channeled in a consistent and disciplined effort to
strike for real freedom. Source: The Christian Century (3 October 1973)
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Greenlee co-wrote a
screenplay adaptation of the novel, and in 1973
The Spook Who Sat by
the Door was released on film. The film was an overnight
success
when it was released but was unexpectedly taken out of distribution. |
 |
For those uninitiated to this
film, or the book it is based upon, here's a quick summary...
A White U.S. Senator, looking to improve his standing among Black
voters, sponsors a drive for the CIA to recruit Black agents.
However, everyone is graded on a curve, so all are condemned to
flunk...save for soft-spoken Dan Freeman. After going through
grueling training in self-defence, guerilla warfare and underground
operations, he is recruited to be a "reproduction chief" (he runs a
photocopier in the sub-basement), and serves the CIA as a token
Black employee (the term "spook" used here is both a racial slur,
and a slang term for a spy).
After 5 years, he leaves the CIA to work in his native Chicago for a
social services agency...by day. By night, he's using his CIA
training to teach a street gang to be the vanguard in an upcoming
race war...
Understandably, this film raised a lot of fears among Whites when
released, and despite box office success, it vanished from
distribution after only three weeks. The film-makers insist it was
pressure on the film's distributors by the FBI and their COINTELPRO
program against Black Nationalist groups.
Long available only on bootleg video copies and screened only on
college campuses, it became an underground classic. And now, it's
legitimately available on DVD.
The DVD includes the rarely seen coming attractions trailer and TV
spot, as well as interviews with the book's author, Sam Greenlee (in
his 70's and still as vocal as he ever was!) and film-maker Robert
Townsend, who says that this film literally changed his life.
Believe the hype! This film was made against the odds (The producer
struggled just to make payroll, and the outdoor scenes in Chicago
were shot without permits!), and despite the years, has not lost any
of it's punch!
Steven F. Scharff
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Sam
Greenlee—novelist, poet, screenwriter,
journalist, teacher and talk show host—was born 13 July 1930 in Chicago.
He attended Chicago public schools. At age fifteen, Greenlee
participated in his first sit-in and walked his first picked line. His
social activism continues. In 1952, Greenlee received his B.S. in
political science from the University of Wisconsin and the following
year attended law school. He transferred to the University of Chicago to
study international relations from 1954 to 1957. In 1957, he began a
seven-year career with the U.S. Information Agency as a foreign services
officer, serving in Iraq, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Greece, and in 1958
he was awarded the Meritorious Service Award for bravery during the
Baghdad revolution.
Greenlee's novel
The Spook Who Sat By the Door, was published in 1968.
Prize-winning its fictionalization of an urban-based war for African
American liberation became an underground favorite. Greenlee co-wrote a
screenplay adaptation of the novel, and in 1973
The Spook Who Sat by
the Door was released on film. The film was an overnight success
when it was released but was unexpectedly taken out of distribution.
Greenlee has written numerous novels, stage plays, screenplays and
poems. He moved back to Chicago after several years of voluntary exile
in Spain and West Africa and is hosted a radio talk show program. He is
presently working on his autobiography.
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Sam Greenlee
(born July 13, 1930) is an African American writer,
best known for his novel The
Spook Who Sat by the Door, first published in London by Allison
& Busby in March 1969, which was made into the 1973
movie of the same name and won
The Sunday Times Book of the Year award. Other
works include
Baghdad Blues, a 1976 novel based on his
experiences traveling in
Iraq in the 1950s, Blues for an African
Princess, a 1971 collection of poems, and
Ammunition, a 1975 collection of poems. In 1990
Greenlee was the
Illinois
poet laureate.
Born in
Chicago, Greenlee attended the
University of Wisconsin (BS, political science,
1952) and the
University of Chicago (1954-7). He is a member
of
Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. He served in
the military (1952-4), earning the rank of first
lieutenant, and subsequently worked for the
United States Information Agency, serving in
Iraq (in 1958 he was awarded the
Meritorious Service Medal for bravery during the
Baghdad revolution),
Pakistan,
Indonesia, and
Greece between 1957 and 1965. He undertook
further study (1963-4) at the
University of Thessaloniki, in Greece, where he
lived for three years.—Wikipedia
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Ammunition: Poetry and Other Raps
By Sam Greenlee
Greenlee is also
known for such works as
Blues for an African Princess
(1971), a collection of poems. His novel
Baghdad Blues (1976) and
Ammunition: Poetry and Other Raps
(1975) both deal with African
Americans’ pain, anger, and fear,
particularly that of those who are
caught up in the racism and oppression
of government agencies.
Greenlee's contributions to the literary
tradition in African American literature
have caused his readers to examine
closely the racial awareness or
unawareness within agencies and
institutions that are designed to serve
all Americans. His presentation of
African Americans’ duality and
paradoxical existence in a racist
society is still providing scholars with
text to investigate the themes of
racism. Greenlee is masterful in his
presentation of characters and
community; his work is saturated with
the African American literary tradition.—Answers |
 |
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Sam Greenlee is
relaxed. He sits lotus style on a rainbow-striped
blanket, rolling cigarettes and talking in
reflective, short streams about the rage that fueled
his 1969 underground classic The
Spook Who Sat by the Door. "I planted the seed and I'll live to
see it grow," says Greenlee. The seed was a portrait
of a black CIA agent who trains a Chicago street
gang to orchestrate a Mau Mau-style war on whitey.
Its growth was stunted, Greenlee has long contended,
by a campaign to keep the 1973 film version of the
book out of theaters. "They haven't discouraged me,"
says Greenlee, 63. "I'm old but I'm not tired. I'm
satisfied with my career, I've done the right
thing."
Growing up in
the 30s and 40s in west Woodlawn, Greenlee lived an
"idyllic" childhood filled with Sunday school, Boy
Scouts, and the rural, southern values of his
parents. He went to Englewood High and earned a
track scholarship to the University of Wisconsin in
1948. He began a graduate degree in international
relations at the University of Chicago. "I went to
two white, brainwashing institutions. But I'm the
black dog that didn't fall for Pavlov's scam," he
says with a chuckle.
Greenlee joined
the foreign service in 1957. "I wanted to see the
world," he says, stroking his silver beard. "Baghdad
was my first post; they were having a revolution. I
was in Pakistan and Greece while both countries were
having a coup. What I've lived is far more exciting
than anything I could make up."
After eight
years, he left the foreign service but stayed on the
Greek island of Mykonos, where he began writing his
first novel. "I never could write while I was
surrounded by those people," he says of his
colleagues. "I was so enraged when I came home every
night. I was watching them undermine whole cultures.
The U.S. is the biggest threat to world peace there
is."—the
relaxed rage of Sam Greenlee
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Baghdad Blues
The Revolution That Brought Saddam
Hussein to Power
By Sam Greenlee
This book is based on the real life
experience of a black man posted to
Baghdad in the late 1950s and employed
by the US Information Bureau. His white
colleagues are totally out of touch with
the emerging political unrest protesting
the corrupt royalist regime and when the
revolution erupts, the US embassy is
shocked. The king it supports is killed
and the entire city of Baghdad is
plunged into political chaos and
violence. Sam Greenlee is a most
engaging story teller...a very
interesting read! Gives insight into
Saddam Hussein's ability to rise to
power given the preceding historical
events.—amazon
customer |
On YouTube
The Spook Who Sat
by the Door /
Part 2 of 11
/
Part 3 of 11 /
Part 4 of
11 /
Part 5 of 11 /
Part 6 of
11
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The Persistence of the Color Line
Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency
By Randall Kennedy
Among the best things about
The Persistence of the Color Line
is watching Mr. Kennedy hash through the
positions about Mr. Obama staked out by
black commentators on the left and
right, from Stanley Crouch and Cornel
West to Juan Williams and Tavis Smiley.
He can be pointed. Noting the way Mr.
Smiley consistently “voiced skepticism
regarding whether blacks should back
Obama” . . .
The
finest chapter in
The Persistence of the Color Line
is so resonant, and so personal, it
could nearly be the basis for a book of
its own. That chapter is titled
“Reverend Wright and My Father:
Reflections on Blacks and Patriotism.”
Recalling some of the criticisms of
America’s past made by Mr. Obama’s
former pastor, Mr. Kennedy writes with
feeling about his own father, who put
each of his three of his children
through Princeton but who “never forgave
American society for its racist
mistreatment of him and those whom he
most loved.” His father distrusted
the police, who had frequently called
him “boy,” and rejected patriotism. Mr.
Kennedy’s father “relished Muhammad
Ali’s quip that the Vietcong had never
called him ‘nigger.’ ” The author places
his father, and Mr. Wright, in
sympathetic historical light. |
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The Last Holiday: A Memoir
By Gil Scott Heron
Shortly after we republished The Vulture and The Nigger Factory, Gil started to tell me about The Last Holiday, an account he was writing of a multi-city tour that he ended up doing with Stevie Wonder in late 1980 and early 1981. Originally Bob Marley was meant to be playing the tour that Stevie Wonder had conceived as a way of trying to force legislation to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday. At the time, Marley was dying of cancer, so Gil was asked to do the first six dates. He ended up doing all 41. And Dr King's birthday ended up becoming a national holiday ("The Last Holiday because America can't afford to have another national holiday"), but Gil always felt that Stevie never got the recognition he deserved and that his story needed to be told. The first chapters of this book were given to me in New York when Gil was living in the Chelsea Hotel. Among the pages was a chapter called Deadline that recounts the night they played Oakland, California, 8 December; it was also the night that John Lennon was murdered. Gil uses Lennon's violent end as a brilliant parallel to Dr King's assassination and as a biting commentary on the constraints that sometimes lead to newspapers getting things wrong. —Jamie Byng, Guardian / Gil_reads_"Deadline" (audio) / Gil Scott-Heron
& His Music Gil Scott
Heron Blue Collar
Remember Gil Scott- Heron |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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