Biography
Sam Melville, born Samuel Joseph Grossman in 1934, was a New York City anti-war activist who, with the small affinity group later known as the Sam Melville-Jonathan Jackson Unit, conducted a series of bombings of corporate, military, and government targets in New York City in the summer and fall of 1969 — the Marine Midland Bank, the Federal Office Building at Foley Square, the Whitehall Street Armed Forces Induction Center, the Standard Oil headquarters, the U.S. Army recruiting office in Pratt Park, the Chase Manhattan Bank, and the General Motors building. He was arrested on November 12, 1969 and pleaded guilty to federal sabotage and bombing charges; he was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison.
He was transferred to Attica Correctional Facility in New York state in 1970 and was one of the central organizers of the September 9, 1971 Attica Prison rebellion — the largest and most consequential prison uprising in U.S. history, in which 1,281 prisoners took control of the prison for four days demanding political and human-rights reforms. On September 13, 1971 New York Governor Nelson Rockefellers state police retook the prison by force. Melville was killed during the assault. He was 36. The 1971 song Sam Melville by Jeffrey Lewis is one of many cultural commemorations.
