Civil rights activist, philanthropist and comedian Dick Gregory has died at the age of 84. According to a statement released by his son Christian, pinned to Gregory’s Instagram page earlier this evening, he wrote:
“It is with enormous sadness that the Gregory family confirms that their father, comedic legend and civil rights activist Mr. Dick Gregory departed this earth tonight in Washington, D.C. The family appreciates the outpouring of support and love and respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time. More details will be released over the next few days.”
Dick Gregory, born Richard Claxton “Dick” Gregory was an American civil rights activist, social critic, writer, entrepreneur, comedian, conspiracy theorist and occasional actor. Gregory began his career as a comedian while serving in the military in the mid 1950s. He was drafted in 1954 while attending Southern Illinois University Carbondale. After being discharged in 1956 he returned to the university but did not receive a degree. With a desire to perform comedy professionally, he moved to Chicago.
The St. Louis native cynically satirized racism and other social ills during his routines (“Segregation is not all bad. Have you ever heard of a collision where the people in the back of the bus got hurt?”). As a way to mine his always timely material, Gregory followed a lifelong habit of stripping articles out of newspapers and magazines. His act was smart and rarely employed profanity. Gregory’s big break came in 1961 when he was booked into the Playboy Club in downtown Chicago as a one-night replacement for Professor Irwin, a white comic who didn’t want to work seven nights a week. Gregory attributes the launch of his career to Hugh Hefner, who watched him perform at Herman Roberts Show Bar.
Gregory’s first television appearance was on the late night show Tonight Starring Jack Paar. He soon began appearing nationally and on television. After the Tonight Show appearance, Gregory noted that his salary jumped from $250 for seven nights of work (three shows a night) at the Playboy Club to $5,000 a night. “And the next year and a half, I made $3.9 million,” he said. “That is the power.”
Gregory used his newfound fame to become a civil rights activist and opponent of the Vietnam War. He made friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X; honored a request from Medgar Evers to speak at a voter registration rally in Jackson, Miss.; delivered food to NAACP offices in the South; marched in Selma, Ala.; got shot while trying to keep the peace during the 1965 Watts riots; was arrested in Washington for protesting Vietnam; performed benefit shows for the Congress of Racial Equality; and traveled to Tehran in 1980 to attempt to negotiate the hostages’ release.
Gregory ran for mayor of Chicago in 1967 but lost to Richard Daley, then entered the race for U.S. president a year later. A write-in candidate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket, he received some 47,000 votes.
“Had I won, first thing I would do is dig up that Rose Garden and plant me a watermelon patch,” Gregory said in 2016. “And it would be no more state dinners, but watermelon lunches. We’d eat watermelon and spit the seeds on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
In 1973, Gregory stopped performing in clubs because smoking and drinking were allowed (his activism surely cost him work), and it would be more than two decades before he returned to the stage. Until recently, he was doing more than 200 shows and lectures a year.
The comedian also published a 1973 book, Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin’ With Mother Nature; founded Health Enterprises, which marketed weight loss products; and introduced the Slim/Safe Bahamian Diet Mix. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 but beat it.
In 2016, Emmy-winning actor Joe Morton (Scandal) portrayed Gregory in the off-Broadway play Turn Me Loose, produced by John Legend.
Survivors include his wife Lillian, a secretary whom he had met at a club in Chicago. They were married in 1959 and had 11 children (one died at birth).