Sam Melville

Samuel Joseph Melville (born Samuel Joseph Grossman, 1934 – September 13, 1971), was the principal conspirator and bomb setter in the 1969 bombings of eight government and commercial office buildings in New York City. Melville cited his opposition to the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism as the motivation for the bombings. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to bombing the Federal Office Building in lower Manhattan, as well as to assaulting a marshal in a failed escape attempt. A key figure in the 1971 Attica Prison riots, he was shot by the police and killed when the uprising was put down by force. Early life Sam Melville (a name borrowed from author Herman Melville) was born to Dorothy and William Grossman in 1934 in New York City. Dorothy left William and moved with Sam back to her hometown of Tonawanda, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. Melville lost sight in one eye at a young age because of a flying cinder. He claimed to have had a rough childhood because of his mother's series of alcoholic and abusive boyfriends. He left home and moved to Buffalo as a teenager, making his living as a bowling alley pinsetter. Melville later met his father, who had come to Western New York to look for him. His father convinced him to move back to New York City, finish his high school education and pursue his passion for singing. Back in New York, Melville completed high school, studied singing, found employment as a draftsman, married and started a family. Politics Although Melville had enjoyed his job, he quit his position in outrage when his employer assigned him to a project designing office buildings in South Africa, then still operating under apartheid, on behalf of Chase Manhattan Bank. The abrupt resignation created a rift between Melville and his wife, and he ultimately became estranged from both her and their child.