Melvin Van Peebles contracted gonorrhea from one of the actresses during filming of one of the sex scenes in the movie. He applied for compensation from the Directors Guild because he "got hurt on the job" and used the money to buy more film.
This was one of Earth Wind & Fire's early work. Melvin Van Peebles paid them with a check that later bounced. To this day, the band has still not been paid for their contribution to the film.
No Hollywood studio would back this movie with a majority-black cast, so actor/writer/director Melvin Van Peebles financed it himself, aided by a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby. It became a hit, earning $15 million.
Considered the first "blaxploitation" movie. It preceded Shaft, les nuits rouges de Harlem (1971) by a few months.
Mario Van Peebles, 13 years old at the time of the film's shooting, makes his screen debut in Sweetback as the younger iteration of the titular character. In the "shocking" opening of the film, young Sweetback loses his virginity to a prostitute, which transforms him into the older, Melvin Van Peebles version of Sweetback. This scene was censored on British editions of the DVD because it "breaches the Child Protection Act", but unlike his father's sex scenes in the film, Mario's was clearly simulated.