Comic/activist/social critic Dick Gregory dies
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This past weekend, the world not only lost comic clown Jerry Lewis, it also lost another comic who had his own schtick, but one that was quite different from what Lewis made the world laugh with.
Dick Gregory, 84, set the path for Richard Pryor and others to follow with his mix of humor and topicality.
He was one of the most popular comedians in the country in the early to mid-1960s, appearing on every variety show and in every night club imaginable, but then his social conscience took hold.
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He morphed into a social crusader, and while you didn’t always have to agree with what he said, you had to respect that he had the guts to say what he did, during a time period when Pryor was basically a pup.
He talked about racial injustice, turmoil in the inner cities, and just about everything that was on the front page of the newspapers back then.
He might have been less funny, but he certainly was more topical, and like other comedians who went this route—including Mort Sahl—he was able to mix the topicality with at least some humor.
One of his most famous stories was that he was eating chicken at some Southern restaurant where blacks were not normally welcome.
A few Klu Klux Klan members came in, and went directly to where he was sitting and eating.
They told him that if he continued to eat there, when he was finished, they would do to him what he was doing to the piece of chicken.
He thought for a moment, and then started kissing the piece of chicken.
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But even Gregory had limits to this topicality.
He veered into other areas, and toward the last years of his performing life, he was looked at as an oddity more than anything else.
He spoke on and on about weight loss, and went on some somewhat historic fasts to prove whatever point he was trying to make.
He took up the cause of Michael Jackson; he said he was on a journey to find out just how Jackson died, even though it was quite obvious what the singer died of. He simply didn’t believe it.
Again, you didn’t have to agree with Gregory on anything, but you had to agree with him that he was the real deal.
And he was just that.
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