Movie wasn't banned in Chicago or NY

On the DVD Robert Townsend remembers that the movie disappeared from theatres shortly after he saw it (he's from Chicago) but his memory is fuzzy. I checked the archives of the Chicago Tribune and here's how the movie played out in Chicago: it opened August 30, 1973 at the Woods Theatre (World Premiere according to the newspaper ad) in downtown Chicago. It played there until it moved to the Roosevelt (also downtown) on October 12-on a double bill with the Burt Reynolds redneck epic "White Lightning" no less. It ran there until October 25, 1973. A week later (November 2, 1973) it opened at theatres in black neighborhoods (the Maryland, Alex, Metropolitan, Englewood, Roseland & Lillard's State Theatres plus the Halsted, Double & Bel-Air Drive Ins and the State in Gary, Indiana) but also at the McVickers, another downtown movie house-this time teamed with "Cotton Comes to Harlem" for $1.00. It finished the local run mid November. The movie played for two and a half months in Chicago so it wasn't yanked or suppressed on it's original release. The fact that it disappeared afterwards...draw your own conclusions. A check of the NY Times archives shows pretty much the same thing, although it appears the movie really hit a nerve there-the titles of two pieces for the paper: "Isn't It Enough to Show Murder? Must We Celebrate It?" (10/21/73) by Stephen Farber and "This 'Spook' Has No Respect For Human Life-Never Before Has Such Disregard For Such A Splendid Word As Freedom Been Displayed On Screen" (11/11/73) by Meyer Kantor. Neither paper gave the movie a good review. Vincent Canby in the NY Times said "Like Dan Greenlee's novel".."is a difficult work to judge coherently. It is such a mixture of passion, humor, hindsight, prophecy, prejudice and reaction that the fact that it's not a very well-made movie, and is seldom convincing as melodrama, is almost beside the point." Siskel in the Tribune gave it one star "If the film were better made, if the characters and dialog were less of a caricature, "Spook" might constitute some sort of clear and present danger." With the dialog "the movie loses the power to persuade."
Another tidbit from the archives-in a interview with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune from August 13, 1972 football/movie star Jim Brown: "I've always wanted to play a thing like "The Spook Who Sat by the Door." It's a novel by Sam Greenlee, who is from Chicago. That's my thing"..."During the book he deals with the various elements of the black and white communities. He is not necessarily a good guy, but in moving through the book he points out a lot about the black establishment and the white establishment. It doesn't say the revolution should be violent; it just shows the different ways all kinds of people are trying to change things. Myself, I believe in economic development." I wonder if Dixon and Greenlee were aware of Brown's interest although fat chance Brown's handlers would have thought it a good career move.