COMEDIAN, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST
LOS ANGELES — Dick Gregory, the comedian and activist and who broke racial barriers in the 1960s and used his humor to spread messages of social justice and nutritional health, has died. He was 84.
Gregory died late Saturday in Washington, D. C., after being hospitalized for about a week, his son Christian Gregory told The Associated Press. He had suffered a severe bacterial infection.
As one of the first black standup comedians to find success with white audiences, in the early 1960s, Gregory rose from an impoverished childhood in St. Louis to win a college track scholarship and become a celebrated satirist who deftly commented upon racial divisions at the dawn of the civil rights movement.
“Where else in the world but America,” he joked, “could I have lived in the worst neighborhoods, attended the worst schools, rode in the back of the bus, and get paid $ 5,000 a week just for talking about it?”
Gregory’s sharp commentary led him into civil rights activism, where his ability to woo audiences through humor helped bring national attention to fledgling efforts at integration and social equality for blacks.
He had strong Chicago ties, getting his break here at the old Playboy Club and even running for mayor against Richard J. Daley in 1966. He attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
Gregory also was scheduled to perform in Chicago later this month.
Besides running unsuccessfully for mayor of Chicago, Gregory ran for president in 1968, when he got 200,000 votes as the Peace and Freedom party candidate. In the late ‘ 60s, he befriended John Lennon and was among the voices heard on Lennon’s antiwar anthem “Give Peace a Chance,” recorded in the Montreal hotel room where Lennon and Yoko Ono were staging a “bed- in” for peace.
An admirer of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Greg- ory embraced nonviolence and became a vegetarian and marathon runner.
Once an overweight smoker and drinker, he became a trim, energetic proponent of liquid meals and raw food diets. When diagnosed with lymphoma in 2000, he fought it with herbs, exercise and vitamins. It went in remission a few years later.
Richard Claxton Gregory was born in 1932, the second of six children. His father abandoned the family, leaving his mother poor and struggling. Though the family often went without food or electricity, Gregory’s intellect and hard work quickly earned him honors, and he attended the mostly white Southern Illinois University.
“In high school I was fight- ing being broke and on relief,” he wrote in his 1963 book. “But in college, I was fighting being Negro.”
He started winning talent contests for his comedy, which he continued in the Army. After he was discharged, he struggled to break into the standup circuit in Chicago, working odd jobs as a postal clerk and car washer to survive. His breakthrough came in 1961, when he was asked to fill in for another comedian at Chicago’s Playboy Club. His audience, mostly white Southern businessmen, heckled him with racist gibes, but he stuck it out for hours and left them howling.
That job was supposed to be a one- night gig, but lasted two months -- and landed him a profile in Time magazine and a spot on “The Tonight Show.”
In a 2006 interview with the Chicago Sun- Times, Gregory said, “I started in Chicago. At the Playboy Club. There wasn’t but one in the world at the time, and everybody from around the world would come there to play. It was the first time a black comedian was allowed to flat- foot [ do standup] at a big nightclub. That was all [ because] of Hugh [ Hefner] And he would give you a good drink. In those days, the Mob controlled 98 percent of the clubs and they watered down their liquor. So people would come to the Playboy Club and get two shots for the price of one.”
Vogue magazine, in February 1962, likened him to Will Rogers and Fred Allen: “bright and funny and topical ... ( with) a way of making the editorials in The New York Times seem the cinch stuff from which smash night- club routines are rightfully made.” ‘’ I’ve got to go up there as an individual first, a Negro second,” he said in Phil Berger’s book, “The Last Laugh: The World of Stand- up Comics.” ‘’ I’ve got to be a colored funny man, not a funny colored man.”
His political passions were never far from his mind -- and they hurt his comedy career. The nation was grappling with the civil rights movement, and it was not at all clear that racial integration could be achieved. At protest marches, he was repeatedly beaten and jailed.
He remained active on the comedy scene until recently, when he fell ill and canceled an August 9 show in San Jose, Cal- ifornia, followed by an August 15 appearance in Atlanta. On social media, he wrote that he felt energized by the messages from his well- wishers, and said he was looking to get back on stage because he had a lot to say about the racial tension brought on by the gathering of hate groups in Virginia.
“We have so much work still to be done, the ugly reality on the news this weekend proves just that,” he wrote.
He is survived by his wife, Lillian, and 10 children.
“WHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD BUT AMERICA COULD I HAVE LIVED IN THE WORST NEIGHBORHOODS, ATTENDED THE WORST SCHOOLS, RODE IN THE BACK OF THE BUS, AND GET PAID $ 5,000 A WEEK JUST FOR TALKING ABOUT IT?” DICK GREGORY, left, pictured in 2013