Gregory riffs on history in final book

Fairly and with a touch of humor, the late Dick Gregory describes himself and his purpose in the opening pages of his new book:

“People call me an activist, social critic, comedian, and, let’s not forget, conspiracy theorist. In this book, I have combined all of these talents to allow us to look at American history differently.”

Gregory died Aug. 19 of heart failure at age 84. “Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies,” completed before his death, is not as definitive as the title suggests, at least not by the standards of footnoted history. But it is a fair representation of Gregory’s passion for social justice and disdain for white supremacy obvious and subtle.

Your mileage may vary on “Defining Moments” depending on how much you already know about these subjects and what you may have learned — or not learned — in school. I found some of Gregory’s writing on earlier American history to be the book’s most compelling elements. After a crisp account of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion, Gregory reminds us, that there were other slave rebellions, too. “A whole lot of black folks resisted slavery,” he concludes. “The revolts I’m telling you about — these are just the ones somebody saw fit to write down. Nobody knows how many more there were.”

Also, he reminds us that George Washington Carver wasn’t just a guy who figured out things to do with peanuts, he was a scientist who promoted the practice of crop rotation, which Gregory argues saved the depleted soil of the South.

Gregory’s reflections on cultural and sports figures are more perfunctory, though even here he gets off a zinger occasionally. He calls a scene in Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” where Huck and Jim go fishing “the first time in America you had a normal conversation between a black man and a white man.”

Then there are Gregory’s conspiracy theories, often hedged in the factually elusive ways made famous by talk radio: Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln were both killed for crossing big banks on monetary policy; white supremacy killed Bill Cosby’s son when Cosby was negotiating to buy NBC; white supremacists derailed Tiger Woods before he could reach Jack Nicklaus’ major championship record. “Be careful with what you let into your mind,” Gregory writes in a different context, but that advice occasionally applies to his work, too.