Comedian and Civil Rights Activist Dick Gregory Dead at 84
Comedian Dick Gregory—who attacked racism through a biting and satirical style of comedy, and was equally well-known for his civil rights activism and advocacy of an austere health regimen—died Saturday, Aug. 19 at the age of 84. Gregory’s family confirmed his death with a post on Instagram.
Born Oct. 12, 1932, in St. Louis, Gregory grew up in an impoverished community in that city. He helped to support his family from an early age. In high school he excelled in track and field, earning a scholarship to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He set school records in the 1/2-mile and 1-mile races. His college career was interrupted when the U.S. Army drafted him in 1954.
His big break came in 1961, when a one-night show at the Chicago Playboy Club turned into a two-month engagement. Time magazine profiled him, and he landed an appearance on The Jack Paar Show. Gregory was a new phenomenon: a black comedian performing for white audiences. He was also part of a new generation of black comedians, including Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge, who shunned the stereotypical comedic minstrel show. In his routines, Gregory tackled issues of the day—especially racism and civil rights—head on. A sampling of his stand-up: “Segregation is not all bad. Have you ever heard of a collision where the people in the back of the bus got hurt?”
During this time, Gregory became very active in the civil rights movement. He spoke before the voter-registration drive known as Freedom Day on Oct. 7, 1963, and made appearances at a number of other rallies, marches and benefits. In 1963 he was jailed in Birmingham, Ala. He was also an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War.
In 1964 Gregory released his autobiography Nigger, about his experiences with America’s color line, starting in boyhood; it has since sold more than 7 million copies. In response to his mother’s objection over the incendiary title, he wrote in the foreword, “Whenever you hear the word ‘nigger,’ you’ll know they’re advertising my book.”
Gregory’s political activism led him to run, unsuccessfully, for mayor of Chicago in 1966 and for the presidency as a write-in candidate of the Freedom and Peace Party in 1968. Of his presidential campaign, he wrote in the 1968 book Write Me In! about how one-dollar bills that the campaign had printed with Gregory’s picture on them had made their way into the money supply. The federal government managed to seize most of the bills, and Gregory avoided criminal charges.
Throughout his life, Gregory remained outspoken on many issues, including world hunger, capital punishment, women’s rights (he marched for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1978), health care and drug abuse. In 2005, at a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, he called the U.S. “the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet. As we talk now, America is 5 percent of the world’s population and consumes 96 percent of the world’s hard drugs.” As a protester, Gregory never stopped putting himself on the front lines: In 2004, at the age of 73, he was arrested while protesting against genocide outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Gregory’s nutritional and political views often found common ground in his sometimes extreme fasting in protest of or support for various issues. During one hunger strike, which he embarked on in Iran in 1980 to obtain the release of U.S. Embassy staff who had been taken hostage, his weight dropped to a reported 97 pounds.
He was also an active proponent of conspiracy theories, no doubt fueled by the assassinations he’d witnessed in the 1960s. Gregory was particularly skeptical about the official U.S. report concerning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.: “One thing I know is that the official government story of those events, as well as what took place that day at the Pentagon, is just that, a story. This story is not the truth, but far from it.”
Gregory, who was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, is ranked at No. 81 on Comedy Central’s list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time. He also has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame and received numerous awards for his civil rights and health activism. Despite his abbreviated career there, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1989.
Monée Fields-White is a freelance writer and editor based in Los Angeles.
I remember when he wrote the book No More Lies. Which is the truth about what happened to the Native Americans....the raw truth. I had that book until it turned raggedy... now it's out of print. Hopefully they will bring it out of print so the younger generation can read it for themselves. A very interesting read. And yeah that raccoon on Davy Crockett's head? Was no raccoon. 
But!
They wanna talk whimsical. And whimsical is that young white boy thinking that this is his country and no one else's-which is the biggest lie told. As why I always say old books are very valuable. And preserving them is vital to our history and world history. But!