FILE – In this Jan. 20, 2016 file photo, long time civil rights activist, writer, social critic, and comedian Dick Gregory, talks to the crowd at the 16th annual Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival, MLK Leadership Luncheon, at the University Area Community Development Center, in Tampa, Fla. (Scott Keeler /Tampa Bay Times via AP)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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 soon 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.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey tweeted, “Dick Gregory’s unflinching honesty & courage, inspired us to fight, live, laugh & love despite it all.”
Many other celebrities from John Legend to Bill Cosby offered their condolences on Twitter.
Dick Gregory lived an amazing, revolutionary life. A groundbreaker in comedy and a voice for justice. RIP
— John Legend (@johnlegend) August 20, 2017
You undoubtably left your "I was here" mark on the world. Rest in power king 🙏🏿 #dickgregory pic.twitter.com/wD6Q6vJHSJ
— Wesley Snipes (@wesleysnipes) August 20, 2017
Bill Cosby broke a month long social media silence to remember Gregory in a series of tweets.
https://twitter.com/BillCosby/status/899092991507386370
https://twitter.com/BillCosby/status/899093067260669956
https://twitter.com/BillCosby/status/899093139004293120
https://twitter.com/BillCosby/status/899094321252749313
RIP Dick Gregory, A 5 Star General in The War for Human Rights!! Glad to have been in your sphere.
— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) August 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/ava/status/899093506869706753
Sad! #RipDickGregory – activist comedian writer, always stood up for what was right with wit, intellect & unwavering conviction. Big loss. https://t.co/hVC3iNjyEM
— Rosie Perez (@rosieperezbklyn) August 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/WhoopiGoldberg/status/899107445313818624
An admirer of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Gregory embraced nonviolence and became a vegetarian and marathon runner.
He preached about the transformative powers of prayer and good health. Once an overweight smoker and drinker, he became a trim, energetic proponent of liquid meals and raw food diets. In the late 1980s, he developed and distributed products for the popular Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet.
When diagnosed with lymphoma in 2000, he fought it with herbs, exercise and vitamins. It went in remission a few years later.
He took a break from performing in comedy clubs, saying the alcohol and smoke in the clubs were unhealthy and focused on lecturing and writing more than a dozen books, including an autobiography and a memoir.
Gregory went without solid food for weeks to draw attention to a wide range of causes, including Middle East peace, American hostages in Iran, animal rights, police brutality, the Equal Rights Amendment for women and to support pop singer Michael Jackson when he was charged with sexual molestation in 2004.
“We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn’t it either. I’m going to be an American Citizen. First class,” he once said.
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 fighting 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.”
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 Aug. 9 show in San Jose, California, followed by an Aug. 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.
