Samuel L. Jackson was born on December 21, 1948, in Washington D.C., and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, under his grandmother’s strict guidance. His mother, Elizabeth Jackson, joined them when he was 10. An early film enthusiast, Jackson frequently saw films at the local movie theater and gained exposure to the complicated messages surrounding the black presence on screen. Versions of Band of Angels were edited for the black audience in Chattanooga, omitting a scene in which Sidney Poitier slaps a white woman.
