Sam greenlee biography

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The novel, seen as “a blueprint for revolution” was first published in London by Allison & Busby in March 1969 (having been rejected by dozens of mainstream publishers). An unpublished autobiography is entitled Sam’s Blues: Adventures of a Travelling Man.

Greenlee co-wrote (with Mel Clay) the screenplay for the 1973 film The Spook Who Sat by the Door, which he also co-produced with director Ivan Dixon and with a score by Herbie Hancock.

Greenlee drew on his own background and his career in the U.S. Foreign Service, and in a 1973 interview with the Washington Post, he said: "My experiences were identical to those of Freeman in the C.I.A. The popularity of the story relies on the clever plot, in which young Black men use the White establishment’s own power against it.

Leaving the USIA after eight years, he stayed in Greece, where he undertook further study (1963–64) at the University of Thessaloniki. Other works by Greenlee are Baghdad Blues and Ammunition! “He knew a lot about history. He rode his bike or went on long walks. “He liked the outdoors. My chief literary influences are Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.

He also worked on an autobiography that was to be called Sam's Blues: Adventures of a Travelling Man. In 1957, Greenlee began a career with the United States Information Agency (USIA) and served in Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Greece between 1957 and 1965 as one of the first Black officials to work overseas. The film was released and reviewed in 1973, and was is considered “one of the more memorable and impassioned films that came out around the beginning of the notoriously polarizing blaxploitation era.

Greenlee believed that cinema owners were visited by members of the FBI and pressed to pull the film from their screens.

Greenlee was named poet laureate of Chicago in 1990. Sunday Times (London) named the novel, which eventually sold more than a million copies in six languages, its Book of the Year.

But while Greenlee’s legacy resides firmly in the acclaim of his most successful novel, his oeuvre includes another fine novel, Baghdad Blues (Black Issues Book Review listed it as one of 1976’s bestselling books by a black author), as well as three collections of poetry.

Perhaps the doctor gave me an extra hard slap on my ass and I’ve been mad at [whyte] folks ever since.”

Greenlee attended Chicago public schools, and at age fifteen, participated in his first sit-in and walked in his first picket line. Greenlee was possibly the first Black infant born in St Luke’s hospital, Chicago, where his mother, fair enough to pass, was admitted to give birth.

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, Greenlee was told that The Spook Who Sat by the Door was required reading at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

On May 19, 2014, Greenlee died in Chicago at the age of 83.

Greenlee once stated: “I speak fluent Greek, Indonesian/Malay and enough Arabic, French and Italian to order a meal and argue with taxi drivers.