Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017)
August 20, 2017 7:45 PM   Subscribe

"You know the definition of a Southern moderate? That's a cat that'll lynch you from a low tree." That joke, delivered in the 1960s by trailblazing comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who passed away Saturday, seems unsettlingly relevant in today's America. Though we aren't in the midst of the struggle for civil rights, that joke was about the evils of white supremacy—something we are clearly still grappling with today.
In 1961, while working at the black-owned Roberts Show Bar in Chicago, he was spotted by Hugh Hefner performing the following material before a largely white audience:
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night.

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, "We don't serve colored people here." I said, "That's all right. I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken."

Then these three white boys came up to me and said, "Boy, we're giving you fair warning. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you." So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, "Line up, boys!"

posted by Johnny Wallflower (52 comments total) 46 users marked this as a favorite
 
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posted by tristeza at 7:45 PM on August 20, 2017


Here is to Dick Gregory, doing the good work, over my entire life span, for sure.
posted by Oyéah at 7:48 PM on August 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


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posted by parki at 8:03 PM on August 20, 2017


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posted by TwoStride at 8:08 PM on August 20, 2017


"Though we aren't in the midst of the struggle for civil rights" - that's debatable. A bit further along, certainly, but far from completion.

My dad was one of the 1.5 million (IIRC) who wrote him in in the 1968 Presidential election.
posted by Philofacts at 8:10 PM on August 20, 2017 [7 favorites]


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posted by MovableBookLady at 8:24 PM on August 20, 2017


Kliph Nesteroff's tumblr has highlighted a lot of clippings, pictures and some video of Gregory, including an entire film he starred in from 1967. (And some of the clippings showing him alongside Jerry Lewis are fascinating too)

Even "Tralfaz", a nostalgia blog that usually features comedians like Jack Benny has a newspaper column from 1961 about Gregory's early success.

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posted by oneswellfoop at 8:27 PM on August 20, 2017 [5 favorites]


In America, with all of its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. But we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting for our country.
Dick Gregory, Nigger (New York: Pocket Books, 1964), 293.

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posted by standardasparagus at 8:43 PM on August 20, 2017 [7 favorites]


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posted by pjmoy at 8:49 PM on August 20, 2017


Bless him.
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posted by droplet at 8:54 PM on August 20, 2017


As quoted recently in an essay by Marlon James:
Down South white folks don’t care how close I get as long as I don’t get too big. Up North white folks don’t care how big I get as long as I don’t get too close.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:34 PM on August 20, 2017 [9 favorites]


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posted by evilDoug at 9:35 PM on August 20, 2017


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posted by Zed at 9:57 PM on August 20, 2017


Philofacts: My dad was one of the 1.5 million (IIRC) who wrote him in in the 1968 Presidential election.

Mine too.

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posted by tzikeh at 10:27 PM on August 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


He was wonderful -- one of the very most effective voices against the militarism that seemed to have the US in a death-grip during the Vietnam War years.
posted by jamjam at 10:57 PM on August 20, 2017


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posted by shibori at 12:22 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by acb at 2:16 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by fraula at 2:37 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by Joey Michaels at 2:46 AM on August 21, 2017


I remember during the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, when the police stopped us from marching south along Michigan Avenue, Dick Gregory, at the head of the march, told the police that he was just inviting 15- or 20-thousand of us to a party at his southside home.
posted by Chitownfats at 2:57 AM on August 21, 2017 [27 favorites]


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posted by heatvision at 3:06 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by Kattullus at 3:07 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by marimeko at 3:31 AM on August 21, 2017


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I have always regretted that I did not vote for Gregory (and Dr. Spock) in 1968 when I had the chance. I thought strategically and voted for Hubert Humphrey. My vote was nothing to the election then, but a great loss to my self-esteem later.
posted by CCBC at 3:37 AM on August 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


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posted by Cash4Lead at 3:44 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by Joe in Australia at 3:47 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by pangolin party at 3:59 AM on August 21, 2017


✊🏿
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 5:33 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by dannyboybell at 5:49 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by neutralmojo at 6:54 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by spinifex23 at 6:56 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by allthinky at 7:09 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by Splunge at 7:09 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by tspae at 7:14 AM on August 21, 2017


Dick Gregory was funny, angry and smart.

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posted by theora55 at 7:23 AM on August 21, 2017


NPR had a nice write-up on Gregory this weekend (with a slight variation on the chicken-kissing story), and another remembrance this morning, focusing more on his activism, with his warning to his his family that "the struggle always came first" (currently audio only, with a transcript to come later today), and here's a search of their archives.

And back in June of this year, CBS News ran an 8 minute piece on Gregory and a one-man show recreating some notable moments from his life, called Turn Me Loose , a sadly short clip of him on the couch talking with Jack Paar, and talks with his children who protested with their father and got arrested as young kids.

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posted by filthy light thief at 7:37 AM on August 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


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posted by cazoo at 8:09 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by Melismata at 8:37 AM on August 21, 2017


What a giant and moral compass...

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posted by Malingering Hector at 8:49 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by camyram at 8:58 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 9:01 AM on August 21, 2017


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posted by cendawanita at 9:24 AM on August 21, 2017


This bit is from the NPR obituary.
DICK GREGORY: And we have a lot of racial prejudice up north, but we're so clever with it. Take my hometown, Chicago. I mean, you can't see it just going in there. Well, negroes in Chicago move into one large area and it looks like we might control the vote, they don't say anything to us. They have a slum clearance.
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:41 PM on August 21, 2017


I forgot how I first learned about Dick Gregory but I immediately got a copy of From the Back of the Bus.
The review in the January 1963 issue of Negro Digest calls it “a volume featuring the irreverent comedian in various poses, demolishing sundry prejudices. When Mr. Gregory mused that America is “the most fascinating country in the world” because “Where else would I have to ride on the back of the bus, have a choice of going to the worst schools, eating in the worst restaurants, living in the worst neighborhoods -- and average $5000 a week just talking about it?”, one is inclined to be sympathetic.”

This is his 1989 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley.
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:42 PM on August 21, 2017 [2 favorites]


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posted by LobsterMitten at 8:24 PM on August 21, 2017


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posted by On the Corner at 2:27 AM on August 22, 2017


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posted by filtergik at 2:56 AM on August 22, 2017


My dad told me Dick Gregory was his claim to fame. He and a friend drove to the airport to pick up Mr. Gregory back in college. I didn't get the whole story from my dad - why they were picked (or volunteered) to do it, but it seems that there were enough concerns about his safety (during the presidential run) that my dad and his buddy ended up acting as his drivers for the day.

It's weird - I never heard the story before this, my dad saw the obit n the newspaper and told me about it.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:04 AM on August 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


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