Spike Lee: The Black Millionaire Blueprint for Success

From his earliest incarnations, Spike Lee has been a singular force as a cinematic defender and upholder of black culture, pride and self-respect. This controversial Morehouse man and Brooklyn, N.Y.- bred filmmaker first came to the national consciousness as the creator of the über-popular Nike commercials featuring the legendary Michael Jordan, playing the role of Mars Blackmon, and then torpedoed onto the front pages with the seminal classics Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, both of which were nominated for Academy Awards.

Lee is alternatively appreciated and reviled in America: he’s beloved in the urban community and reviled, feared or both, in mainstream circles because he uses his director’s lens like a scalpel to perform invasive surgery on white America’s faulty sense of smug superiority. His films always seem to spark deep conversations that we have behind closed doors and need to bring out into the open.

With the help of biography.com and celebrityworth.com, we take a quick look at the life of this groundbreaking filmmaker.