William Greaves

Biography

William Greaves (October 8, 1926 – August 25, 2014) was a documentary filmmaker and a pioneer of African-American filmmaking. He produced more than two hundred documentary films, and wrote and directed more than half of these. Greaves garnered many accolades for his work, including four Emmy nominations, one of which he won for his work as executive producer on the African-American news program Black Journal. Description above from the Wikipedia article William Greaves, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Directed

1. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968) — Director
2. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2½ (2005) — Director
3. Still A Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class (1968) — Director
4. Emergency Ward (1959) — Director
5. The First World Festival of Negro Arts (1966) — Director
6. From These Roots (1974) — Director
7. That's Black Entertainment (1989) — Director
8. Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey (2001) — Director
9. The Fighters (1974) — Director
10. Voice of La Raza (1971) — Director
11. Nationtime: Gary (1972) — Director
12. Putting It Straight (1957) — Director
13. Four Religions (1960) — Director
14. Smoke and Weather (1958) — Director
15. Black Power in America: Myth or Reality? (1986) — Director
16. Where Dreams Come True (1979) — Director
17. The Marijuana Affair (1975) — Director
18. Space For Women (1981) — Director
19. Fighter for Freedom: The Frederick Douglass Story (1984) — Director
20. Wealth of a Nation (1964) — Director
21. In the Company of Men (1969) — Director
22. Frederick Douglass: An American Life (1985) — Director
23. Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice (1989) — Director
24. On Merit (1972) — Director
25. Whose Standard English? (1974) — Director
26. The Best of Black Journal (1988) — Director
27. Just Doin’ It (A Tale of Two Barbershops) (1976) — Director
28. The Fight (1974) — Director
29. The Deep North (1988) — Director
30. Black Journal: 9 (1969) — Director
31. Black Journal: 18 (1969) — Director
32. Booker T. Washington: The Life and the Legacy (1982) — Director
33. Once Upon a Time in Harlem (2026) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968) — Self - Director
2. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2½ (2005) — Self
3. Lost Boundaries (1949) — Arthur 'Art' Cooper
4. Sepia Cinderella (1947) — Patron
5. Hollywood Black (2024) — Self (archive footage)
6. Miracle in Harlem (1948) — Bert Hallam
7. Souls of Sin (1949) — Isaiah 'Alabama' Lee
8. The Fight Never Ends (1948)
9. Discovering William Greaves (2006) — Self
10. The First World Festival of Negro Arts (1966) — Narrator
11. That's Black Entertainment (1989) — Host/Narrator
12. Black Power in America: Myth or Reality? (1986) — Narrator/Interviewer
13. The Man Who Built Cambodia (2017) — Self
14. Our Paul: Remembering Paul Robeson (2007) — Self
15. Once Upon a Time in Harlem (2026) — Self (archival footage)