Gregory the Great

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa discuss the illustrious life of comedian and activist Dick Gregory, from the incisive racial commentary in his stand up and ensuing legal struggles to his runs for office, relationship with Medgar Evers, opposition to the Vietnam War, and his allyship with the feminist movement.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening and waiting on reparations of reduction of
my heart radio than what's happening y'all? It is the
dope knife. This is the lingua franca, and we are
waiting on the reparation. I like the the the lingua franca.
You should consider making that like a real official change.

(00:26):
I dikett, but you know, like lingua franca is often
used with what's that the singular definite article and that
you know it's the you know, English is the lingua franca,
is the lingua franca of the internet. Uh you know,
France is the lingua franca in uh quote unquote both

(00:46):
colonial Africa. So so where did where did the name come?
Because I don't think we've ever really discussed where a
red We not ever talked about this word. So um
so yeah, I have a master's in English for some
fucking reason, and I and sudden linguist has learned about
lingua francos, which are languages used to communicate across um
cultural boundary. So like I was saying, you know, Mandarin

(01:09):
um as the official language of China is the lingua franchise.
Even the various dialects have spoken all over China, um,
and I could get all into the languages versus dialect.
But um, so, I you know, adopted this to my
rap name because I wanted my music to be a
lingual franchise for all kinds of people come together around
the music that name, and I hope that's true. Um,

(01:32):
but that's a way more like noble reason than BT it. Obviously,
my name is Mac, but like I used to have
a homie, you still call me Mac the Knife back
in the day, and yeah, yeah, so like I'll be.
My first rap name for years was just Mac. I
would just go by Mac. And then I just didn't

(01:52):
like the way that it looked like on the back
of mixed on the back of mix tapes, and just
look weird to see everybody with cool rap code names.
Like before people started just rapping by their their government
and ship like that. So it's like everyone's got like yo,
I'm Spike, Yo, I'm little this young man. I was
just like I'm Mac. It's like, no, I got a chance.

(02:16):
So I started going by Knife and I was in
a group Dope Sandwich. Long story short, you know, when
the group disbanded, it was kind of like, let me
keep the dope too, you know, symbolize my crew that
sort of thing. This ain't a regular knife. This is
a dope knight exactly exactly. Funny Ship was like, I
don't know why, but every now and then, Joe Rogan,

(02:39):
we'll be talking about like an actual knife on Instagram
or Twitter or some should be like a dope name.
You'll say this is a dope knife, and then my
mentions will go fucking crazy for like a day. You capitalize, Yeah,
y'all would hate me. Um. Yeah, anyway, so we're back.

(03:00):
How's your Weeker? Week was good? A week has been?
Oh weak? Um, I have been on one with regards
to my like uh my, my, my perpetual tustling with
the cops or yeah, we need to follow up on
what we talked about last Okay, So I talked to
you about how the police people was like real mad
at me, and uh yeah, So that all kind of

(03:22):
just dissipated in that the county manager kind of had
a word with him about his behavior because not only
was what he said just just generally offensive and inappropriate,
it was in violation of the county charter, like the
literal structure of how a government is supposed to work
in certain ways. So they had a little chat UM
and uh so that was all fine, But I was like, yeah,

(03:44):
y'all thought you gonna silence me, but that's never going
to happen. Was it just like a talking to or
did he get disciplined somehow? No? He It was described
as a counseling, which I think is like a you know,
a way to stoppen like hey, but we're just gonna
have a little chat, you know, only it was a
disciplinary matter. Probably felt like it for someone that operates
with utter impunity um, as law enforcement often does. But

(04:11):
excuse me, but so I pinned another opinion of editorial
on Monday night, UM just about revolutionary optimism and just
like how to understand losing UM because I had read
another article recently um to crying like to fund the
police that's like UM and and the like plooral vulnerability

(04:33):
and a failed movement and how people need to move on,
And I just wanted to reframe some of the evidence
they used that the HI fund had failed for people
that who might be more sensitive to that kind of rhetoric.
You know, it's a lot of young people out here
who have their hope really high that they contained to
the world, and so I just wanted to like offer
them a word of hope in ways that probably further angered, um,

(04:54):
the law enforcement officials in my community. But you know what,
I'm not worried about it. I'm not wal worried about it.
They got a problem with it. They know where they
could stick it. About that, I mean, I don't I know,
you can't say that. I can't say that. I will
not say that, but um, I will say that I
have frequently found at moments of high tension when I

(05:16):
am getting like yelled at by many people about something,
it generally coincides with when something really important is happening
in a very important conversation that we need to have
is happening. So it's not something like eye relashan or
just like it does. It does come with a personal
and cost and cost my mental health. But it's like, mm,
I've seen this correlation a lot. It probably means that

(05:36):
this is important if this is starting to happen to me, Well,
I mean it is always always recognizing and prioritizing what's
important versus what's not. You know what I'm saying, Like
knowing would what battles to fight and win. So yeah, um,
all right, so let's get into what we're getting into today.
So today is an episode that we have been long

(05:57):
talking about for the last two weeks. We are going
to be talking about the man, the myth, the legend,
Dick Gregory, now Richard Claxton Gregory as he's in Claxton Claxton,
let me talk to Claxton. Richard Claxton Gregory was comedian, author,
civil rights and health activists. Born October twelfth, nineteen thirty two.

(06:22):
He would eventually pass away August nineteen. His career had
several moments of social relevance, from his rise in stand
up comedy in the fifties, his civil rights work alongside
Mega Evers and MLK in the sixties, his anti Vietnam
War activism in the seventies, and jump start that jump

(06:44):
started by a health and fitness revolution that he had
going on in the eighties. I mean, the brother was
fitness revolution. I want to have a health and fitness revolution.
Oh yeah, like, I mean like his his impact on
health and fitness in the eighties was so much that
Dick Gregory became like a what's the word I'm looking

(07:06):
for this linguist. It's like like people would say something like, hey, man,
you're looking good. You've been you've been losing weight? Oh yeah, man,
you know I've been doing that. Dick Gregory, his name
became with health and fitness exactly like even a house party,
house party, there's a there's a part where like there's
a there's an overweight guy, but he's like tell us,

(07:28):
He's like, yo, bring me over. Some of that did
Gregory because like Dick Gregor used to have this uh
like vitamin mineral supplement juice thing. He was he was
really really had, you know, headstart on the whole juice
and juicing movement and all that clear about which one
were talking about here, all right, So um yeah, we're

(07:49):
gonna get into that. We're going to dive into his
life at times, talk about some of his activism over
the years, and you know, just for for for caps
who do know Dick Gregory and have heard of him,
because he is a pretty famous dude. You know, uh,
you're you're gonna be here and some of the things,
you know, you might hear some stuff you don't know.
But for some of the younger folks out there who

(08:10):
have never heard of I never I never heard about Dickory.
You never heard Okay, So see, like, why how did
I come to hear about Dick Gregory. Besides for like
the colloquial you know, references like in weight loss and
stuff like that. I think I started hearing about him
in the like early two thousand's. I mean, obviously he

(08:31):
had been around for longer, but I think the early
two thousand's he uh started speaking or at least in
forms where I would see, like he would speak at
like BT events, and you know, I think Martin Lawrence
did like a comedy special that he was part of
in his old in his advanced old age and stuff
like that. So it was always like, oh man, this
is like some old dude talking some real ship. And

(08:53):
obviously there's more two of them than I knew, you know,
And and that that was pretty much my exposure to
Dick Gregory. But this will be cool of you hadn't
heard of him before this. Yeah, let's get it all right.
We'll be right back with that after the jump. Okay,

(09:15):
ladies and gentlemen, we are back and we are about
to jump into this whole thing with Dick Gregory. Now
Gregory attended. The one thing I'm gonna say first, The
one thing I'm gonna stay first, is that, do you
hear me? Yeah? Okay, the one do you want to
stay first? We're talking about, like, oh, who you know?
Have you? Young folks haven't heard Dick Gregory? Now? If

(09:37):
you had to sit me down and say, who do
you think Clacton Gregory was, I'd be like, it's me
the governor of Mississippi. Did he hey, my grandfather from
a tree and steal his land? And still a little
just today like like the odest want to say, that

(09:57):
is surprising. I think a lot of what we're gonna
talk about today if prising, given the old timiness of
his name. I does don't trust old timins. Nobody name Ethel,
I don't trust nobody names. Loraine do trust no Bertha,
none of y'all. Note y'all cool with me? Well, Gregory

(10:20):
is still a little even just that a lot like
looking at you so sideways? I don't know about that. Well.
In Dick Gregory's defense, I had never heard the name
Claxton used in in association with Dick Gregory until looking
at his Wikipedia thing. So it's not I only I've
only ever heard the name Claxton. It was the last
name of the whitest girl in my elementary He was

(10:43):
trans loosened in the light. I think there was a
basketball player back in the day called Speedy Claxton. This
nigga's name was Speedy Claxton. Yeah, be Claxton, BEDI Claxton,
And it wasn't a nickname. Nigga's name was Speedy. I just,
I just, I mean, I joked on this in my head.

(11:04):
Should I say out loud? There's so many anyways, So
Speedy class did attend me. Clas Dick Gregory attended Southern
Illinois University on a track scholarship before getting drafted into
the United States Army. Now, it was in the Army

(11:25):
that he would eventually get his quote unquote start in
comedy after he was urged on by a commanding officer
to get into the game, who he noticed that he
had a pension for telling jokes. That's surprising as hell
in itself, given how regimented and soul prefting the army
is like. And you know what we don't do around

(11:45):
here a lot? How fun? You know what you're good
at making people have fun? We're talking about fired. We're
talking about early fifties too, you know. Yeah, so so
he uh, he ended up getting into that way. He
would eventually go back to the Southern Illinois University, but
he only went I think, uh for maybe like another

(12:07):
year or so before he dropped out. He would state
that the school wanted him to run and not to learn,
but in any event, he was considering using this as
a jumping off point to try to pursue a career
and being a professional stand up comic. Speaking of what
I'm gonna butt in with all kinds of random ship
because um, I'm drinking Carlo Carlo Rassi go speaking of

(12:31):
dropping out of college. Um we uh. We talked about
student debt on like episode maybe a year ago, and
it's been coming up a lot because the re loan
payments are about to start again like in sixty days
and everybody's real mad about it and the Democrats gonna
lose the make terms over it. But this issue, but

(12:54):
didn't Biden already drop it? Then he said, no, I
don't didn't do ship for anybody. I mean not to know.
He didn't get child tax credit. That was pretty cool,
but in in researching this whole issue because I'm gonna
trying to push war kN off at a stop to
get behind the other congress people who are pushing canceled
student debt. Um. I learned that of student loan borrowers

(13:16):
drop out of college. They don't even finish coup. They
got like thirty thousand, sixty dollars and loans, but they
only have an agreed So. But back in back in
Claxton's days, Um, you don't have to worry about that.
You go to the army. You know, you get your
school paid. I mean, I guess that's still true. But
you know, college costs like three thousand dollars a year.

(13:38):
You can be making nickels at the little so to
float shop on Main Street and pay for that ship.
So he's like, Who's like, yo, I don't pay ship
for this degree. What's up going to become a professional comedian? Probably?
I mean it's contrasting the you know, the time a
little bit so. So somewhere somewhere after he uh left

(14:01):
school and left the army, he would have tried his
hand in opening up a comedy club, but that would
eventually fail, wouldn't work out the way that he wanted to,
but he still stuck with it, still kept doing his comedy,
and his star was rising. He became part of a
new generation of black comedians that included Nipsey Russell. Stop
I didn't know that Nipsey Hustle's name came from somewhere.

(14:23):
Stop it, I didn't know. Yeah, yeah, Nipsey Russell. He
was a comedian, yeah, obviously, but I mean he was
like he's like one of those um he's like one
of those like old like Amos and Andy type of
comedians like back in the day, you know, apparently because
he was born in fucking nineteen eighteen. Yeah, yeah, like

(14:45):
like this in Atlanta, which makes me more embarrassed. I
didn't know who he was. Well, see, okay, so you know,
part of that generation with Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby, Godfred Cambridge.
These are all guys who broke the whole minstrel show
tradition and show buzin at the time. They're bucking stereotypical
portrayals of black people and that Gregory, as far as

(15:07):
his comedy goes, it's much akin to something that we
would recognize now, at least like in like an early
day of Chappelle or Chris Rock stuff like that where
a lot of his comedy was based on the racial
issues of the day. Um well, here's what I'm gonna
say about that, though, is that as much as you
can be groundbreaking and like showing the many facets of blackness,

(15:30):
I feel like, and we'll get into more of like
Dick Gregory's like audience in a bit, but when we
talk about people like Bill Cosby, who I know is
really influential you know, to me when I was growing up,
but even people like Dave Chappelle, like, at some point
you are performing for white people, particularly in the era
when you have like stuff on TV, you have Netflix, Like,
it's not as like geographically to find the audiences. So

(15:52):
it's not like you're performing in a comedy club but
a black neighborhood. It's like you've got special on Netflix.
Who knows he's watching it, and so like like it's
almost like, I hate to say this, but in some
ways it could still be minstrel ce like because you're
still kind of like, you know, doing a song and
dance for white people, even if you don't mean to.
Even if it's not as like like that, it's not

(16:14):
as flattening of the black experience, as like menstre Ce
was when they're like openly like trying to make white
people laugh about black people, think about like the making
of Claxton, think about Clayton Bigsby. Like I remember when
I was in middle school and that should dropped. I
had a bunch of fucking like white friends who were

(16:34):
in bands with me, like laughing about like you know, nigger, nigger, nigga,
this and that. Like it's like problematic because it kind
of reinforces some stiff that people think about black people
if they don't know actual black people. But not to
say that Dick Gregory was like that, I'm the stand
Like when we talk about breaking with the minstrel minstrel
show tradition, I think it's like a complex thing accident.

(16:57):
But I mean, I mean, first, Dick Gregory wasn't even
well we'll get into a little bit of what he
thought about his audience and the changing his audience and
who he was trying to reach. But Dick Gregory himself
personally wasn't against the minstrel shows. He wasn't against the
amos and Andy's and stuff like that. As a matter
of fact, He's quoted saying that the problem was much

(17:18):
like today, is that there wasn't ballads. You know. He
was like, it's not a matter of, oh, get rid
of Amos and Andy. It's a matter of that's all
that there is. So that they're not showing the full
facets of blackness as as he would go on to
describe it. But I mean also also we're not talking like,
um metaphorical minstrel ship. Yeah. I mean, like the comedians

(17:42):
that that Dick Gregory was coming after were literally minstrel shows.
You know what I'm saying, Like like literally like bug
very specific in that context. Yeah, like like so, so
by bucking that tradition, I just mean that and the
little like I mean that, I mean that in the
technical sense. I would say if somebody started doing sound

(18:02):
film and they went from silent film, you know what
I mean, Yeah, nothing makes sense. There's a metaphorical sense, uh,
and then there's a literal, actual contextual, historical sense. And
I think saying in this instance, yea. So he would
credit his jump off to Hugh Hefner, the owner of
owner of founder of Playboy. Now a lot of people

(18:23):
have again for our younger audience, and obviously it's way
before my time. But the Playboy Club in the Playboy
clubs that were like franchise around the US were like
a big deal in the fifties and sixties. Franchise. I'm
sorry when you said franchise, you made me think when
Playboy clubs were like a fucking stunty tea or some ship.

(18:45):
Well that's kind of ride down to your local frit mall.
Come on, kids, hop into them. We're gonna go. The
Playboy clubs. Well that's how it was. I mean, I mean,
the Playboy Club. It wasn't they weren't They were like
it's the actual phrase, quote unquote gentleman club is that what?
There weren't necessarily strip clubs, you know what I mean
there was, There weren't women dancing naked and stuff like that.

(19:07):
It was more so it was more so just like
you know, stuffy white guys in suits smoking cigars and
as when it just it just had a lot of
popularity to it. You know, there's like a Playboy Club Chicago,
there's a Playboy Club Club l A. And I just
mean in a time before their work chuck e cheeses
and stuff like the Playboy Club was a big deal.
So when Dick Gregory got his opportunity to um oh,

(19:31):
when he threw a chance encounter with Hugh Hefner, Hugh Hefner,
you know, decided to have him fill in on a
spot at the Playboy Club. And just from the you know,
like the Playboy Club is, it's kind of like what
has that. It's kind of like if you're on like
a huge podcast or something like that. You know, it's
like once, once you play the Playboy Club as a comedian,
then it's then your name starts getting out there. So

(19:52):
that that's uh so he he took to the day
he died. He accredited Hugh Hefner with launching his comedy career.
What do you think? I mean, that's cool. Good for him,
that's great. I'm so caught up on this, like idea
of the Playboy Club. Still think about Chucky Teas. I'm like, well,
the Dave of Busters is like David bust Ut, Yeah,

(20:13):
go in there in your leisure student, like I don't know,
get asthma from breathing in the car smoke. You should.
You should check out some like some old footage from
the old Playboy Club things, because I just you know,
in this I think through time maybe it just it
has a different connotation. Not that it wasn't like some

(20:37):
it's a ton of girls in bonny ears and little
leotard's I'm not complaining about, but that definitely was the case.
I just mean, you know, it wasn't a strip club.
You know, if you think Playboy and you have clothes,
there's not a lot. Yeah, this is fine, it's cool.
So while we're working for the United States Postal Service

(21:03):
in the daytime, Gregory performance comedian small primarily black patronized nightclubs.
In an interview with The Huffington's Post, Gregory described the
history of black comics as limited. Blacks could sing, Blacks
could sing and dance in the white nightclubs, but weren't
allowed to stand flat footed and talk to white folks,
which is what comic does. And there's something about that

(21:25):
quote dans flat footed, like what am I supposed to
doing on my tippytales around white people? No, he's saying,
he's saying, it's just unders a funny image. Well, I
mean comedians don't sing and dance. I guess that is
what he was saying, at least not the style of
comedy that he was doing. He you know, because like
again he was doing like that. Gregory used to get

(21:47):
some of the criticism that he would get from other
black comedians of the day is that he was too serious.
You know. A lot, a lot of the criticism that
he would get was, oh man, he's more of an
activist the comedian of his his stuff is more angry
than funny, you know what I'm saying. So like for
him him going to the Playboy Club and doing a

(22:09):
set at the time, it's like, hey, this isn't like
somebody come up their wide eyed talking about hey boss,
you know what I mean. It's like a fucking suave
you know, smooth, cool ass, intelligent black dude smoking us
a guard talking about real ship of the day like like.
Because of the razor early charged nature of his act,

(22:31):
the administration the University of Tennessee, for instance, along with others,
branded him as an extreme racist whose appearance would be
an outrage and an insult to many citizens of the state,
and they revoked his inverstation by students to speak on campus.
The students sued, and they noted. The students sued with
noted litigator William Kunstler as their counsel, and in Smith

(22:56):
versus the University of Tennessee, they want an order from
the court that the university's policy was too broad and vague.
In the University of Tennessee implemented an open speaker system
and Dick Gregory would eventually get to perform, and they oh,
you won, my friend, great job. Proud of him. It
would be one of one of many wins. But so
what are your what are your thoughts about that so far?

(23:17):
I mean I think that whenever like you raised any
kind of issues at all, whenever you're speaking realness people,
I want to say, you're angry, Like if you're ever
not just like going with the grain, people are gonna
be like, oh, even like staying is racially charged. I
don't know, man, I mean, like you throught it's talk
about real ship like everybody's found down, but that it
ultimately like came to a four case and everything, but

(23:41):
order that it came before the courts that like, yo,
y'all need to like y'all need to skill is I mean,
it's just a little ridiculous. But this is yeah, well,
I mean this is like he would have he would
eventually get to speak in nineteen seventies, but all this
stuff end in the fifth I didn't even make that connection.
Man that so um Gregory noted that as his stardom

(24:12):
in the world of comedy rose, he couldn't ignore the
images that he was seeing from the struggle down South
and civil rightings. Many black celebs at the time avoided
really getting their feet wet in it or commentating on
it like that out of you know, fear recussions losing
their career, alienating an audience that perhaps they wanted to maintain.

(24:33):
So a lot of them didn't mention it. But he
found like a lot of struggle with just sitting back
and making money while this was going on. And he
also didn't feel comfortable just sending a check, you know
what I mean, Like he he didn't think that that
was adequate. So he had a conversation with his wife
and he told her, Hey, I'm about to embark on this,

(24:55):
and like, I know that I'm a I'm a I'm
i'm a rising star comedian right now, but you know,
are you all right with understanding that all this ship
could end now? And I mean, that's what you gotta do?
Some downs And I look so he put his career
at risk. In nineteen sixty three, he went to Selma.

(25:16):
He spoke for two hours on the public platform UH
two days before voter registration drive known as Freedom Day.
In nineteen sixty four, he helped the search for three
missing civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Scharner,
who vanished in Philadelphia, Mississippi. After Gregory and members of

(25:38):
the Corps the Congress for Racial Equality, they met with
the Nashoba County Sheriff, Lawrence A. Rainey, and de Gregory
became convinced the sheriff's office was complicit, so with cash
provided to him by Hugh Hefner, Gregory announced the twenty
five thousand dollar reward for information, and the FBI, which
had been criticized for their inaction, event truly followed the

(26:00):
suit with its own reward. And the rewards were the
bodies of the three men were found by the FBI
for you, four days after they disappeared. You said their names.
It's like I know their names from somewhere because they
were fucking murdered. Um. Great, but hey, great job getting
The FBI did not merely breakup social movements, but pretend
to care when their arbiters are, you know, mysteriously disappeared

(26:26):
in kilt. Great good job, Bethy, I we love you.
This isn't gonna be the last of the FBI and
the Dick Gregory story. Now you you remember the Cointel
pro stuff, right o? Can I forget? I think about
every day every day in my life. Hey, like he
he Dick Gregory is one of those figures. Now. Remember

(26:46):
remember when we were talking about it, we were talking
about music and musicians in the right. But they had
like a whole like j Edgar Hoover had a whole
thing out for black comedians, with Dick Gregory being one
of his number one targets in it. So Gregory was beaten,
he was jailed, he was hose, he got his arm

(27:07):
broken down there, he had dogs sicked on him. Him
and his friend, his friends Mega evers and MLK Mega
Evers who he was actually personal personal friends with. As
a matter of fact, he was actually personal friends with
Mega evers Um. During his work that he was doing
the civil rights movement, his uh son passed away, so

(27:31):
he ended up having to leave to go back to
Chicago to you know, deal with that whole situation and
Mega Evers were and how they like pretty much any
other's company. There are a lot of people think that
was the only reason that did Gregory wasn't gunned down
is because he had left to go attend his child's funeral.

(27:53):
Otherwise he otherwise he would have been on in that
in the front of that driveway with Mega Evers when
he was shot. Oh god, don't missing the ship. Oh god,
he would. I mean, obviously, all this is to just
set up the fact that this brother went from comedian
on the rise to recognizing injustice as he saw it

(28:17):
and putting his money where his mouth was, which is, hey,
I'm about to get involved. It might affect my career
for the negative, but you gotta stand by they print
what your principle, don't you know what I'm saying? And
see you know, we've had conversations on the show before
about the role of celebrities in social movements, and it's

(28:38):
a very complicated conversation because there's a lot of people
don't opinions down there and trying to jump in and
like helped it. Throw a lot of money around, is
thely what they like to do because they don't actually
have to put their bodies on the line. It's just
like I mean, in this case, he was like, hey,
here's twenty five dollars. He's somewhat in that same vein.
But you see that very often where it's like, hey,
I announced this partnership and with Venmo where we're gonna

(29:00):
like you know, give your kids, um, you know, diabetes
medication or whatever. Um. But like there's something something about
this to me. I mean maybe it's because of like
there's a stali nostalgizing of like the Civil rights movement
where everything seems so pure and like their ideals were
so untainted that like I mean, and also here that

(29:22):
Gregory like actually put himself on the line. He was
out there with folks like close to folks who are
losing their lives in the struggle. Like it feels a
little more like authentic than some of the like what's
the activism you see of like I don't know, people
just showing up on marches to put it on the
grahnd or like you know, I announced the partnership with MasterCard,

(29:42):
were we're not gonna beat your kids, or like you know, well,
I mean just to put it in this context, right,
and Okay, I don't think that I have that I
should have to preface it by saying fucking Bill Cosby.
But all right, we all know fun Bill Cosby off
the jump, right, but you know we're hip hop show.
It's not like a clear position support someone deeply embedded

(30:03):
in hip hop and necessarily a whole. Yeah that's true.
True that too that that could be a whole unfortunately.
But um but like you heard of Bill Cosby, right,
and you haven't heard of Dick Gregory. You the reason
that you had heard of Bill Cosby Gregory is not
because like Bill Cosby was just like so infinitely funnier

(30:25):
than Dick, because it was because one gave up his career,
like for real, for real was it was like like that.
And that's what you don't see. You don't see activists.
I mean, like, um, yeah, you don't see. You don't
see celebrities like I am going to risk my fortune.
I'm gonna risk my millions and billions crime his prime
prime in the beginning, like he had just he it

(30:47):
would be like if it would be like if Drake
left Wrap to go do activism stuff in like two
thousand ten, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I
don't even really got, you know, fully like become what
he what he was gonna become what he did. That
his activism would expand into different areas as time went on,
you know, because like you know, we're obviously jump cutting

(31:09):
and stuff like that. But you know, through the course
of all this stuff, Mega Evers dies, he continues to fight,
m Okay dies, He continues to fight and continues being
a civil rights uh figure. But you know, as time
goes on, this would expand to anti Vietnam War activism,
economic reform activism, anti drug issues, which he did stay

(31:32):
away from. He stayed away from doing any sort of
like p s a don't do drugs stuff because he
was like, man, I can't tell these kids not to
do drugs when if you see my stand up, I'm
like standing there like with a glass of scotch smoking
cigarettes like they're going out of stop. But but but
as he got more into like his activist activist activist

(31:53):
stage and you know, entered into his forties, he became
a lot more conscious about a man, these drugs are
destroyed the community and stuff like that. Yeah yeah, yeah,
um he uh It's part of his activism. One of
the things that he became pretty popular for as an activist.
And also, you know, people were telling him, like first

(32:15):
when he got into activism, people were saying, hey, stick
to comedy. Right. Then he gets into activism, he does
all that stuff during the civil rights era, the Vietnam
War stars he starts speaking out about that, people start going, hey, man,
you should stick to civil right. So it's just like
it's just like a never that's wild. You never hear that.

(32:36):
You never ever hear that. They're always telling us to
shut up and dribble and ship. And they're like now
they're like, no, stick with the original activism. Um. But
now he he went in on the on the Vietnam War,
and I'm sorry I caught myself in the thought. But
one of the things that he was popular for in
terms of the strikes that he would organize, he would
organize hunger strikes where he himself would fast and you know,

(32:59):
put his body through a lot of strain in order
to make the points that he was making. But he
would he would do these hunger strikes like for for
all of these different movements. He would get a lot
of people to join him to the point to where
he started backing off on that because of like the
young people who were following in his footsteps and like

(33:20):
actually getting pretty sick doing it, you know what I'm saying,
because they weren't like helping enthusiastic enthusiasts like he was
when they were trying to do it. But he caused
up so much ship in the seventies over the Vietnam War,
brother ended up getting banned from Australia by the government
because they feared that his presence in the country would
stir up demonstrate his presence alone would stir up demonstrations

(33:42):
against the You know how you got you know what
a bad bits you had to be to get banned
from Australia. You know, you know only should have been
in Australia an assault weapons and you gotta be a real,
real bad bit in Australia for real. And like you
don't even got the Internet to spread your message and
you're getting banned, you getting banned off, You're getting banned
off a newspaper press. Um. He would take this anti

(34:11):
war activism and use that to get into politics. So
he first got into politics in nineteen sixty seven when
he ran for the mayor of Chicago. You did not win. Yeah,
because he grew up against fucking Richard Daily. It proved
that it wouldn't be Chicago. So I mean, like, so,

(34:36):
like what what what is that? What do you feel
about that? That turn? Like from that now, going from now,
going from activism to like trying to get into electoral politics.
I mean that makes sense. I mean as an entertainer
and I saw this story a lot, I think it
prepares you for life and politics in a lot of
different ways. He used to standing up from a bunch

(34:57):
of people saying some wild shit, Um, use your platform
to organize, you know, if you can fill the room
with people and captivate them with the story you tell.
I mean, that's what politicians do. That's what organizers and
activists do. This trajectory makes a ton of sense to me,
though it is I mean personally though it might not
make logical sense in like a common sense way. It's like,

(35:19):
I mean, that's kind of what I did. I don't know, so,
but running against yeah, Richard Daily for mayor Chico. That's
that's dope. That's who was So who is Richard Daily?
So Richard Daily? Uh, he was like, let me hold on,
let me refresh my memory on this, Like he like
storied storied mayor of Chicago. Um the um he was

(35:46):
re elected. I think he was re elected like five times. Yeah,
like so he had six terms in office. Was he
an asshole? I mean he was a mayor. Probably a
little bit um comes with the territory. Yeah, I mean
like he Um he was like for gun control, which

(36:07):
I think even in this era, that's probably predated. No,
this was this is post I mean, but like you know,
we've talked about talking about gun control out on the
show and how it's a little bit uh it's it's
uh inequitable, inherently given. Like black people today effectively can't
own guns in that like if you even look like
you if you have a cell phone in your hand,

(36:29):
you'll get shot down. Um O don't No, I can't
remember a whole lot about him other than like he
was the mayor for a long time, like a long time, long, long, long,
long time. That's probably why he was so famous because
like the nigga was in that ship for like what
fucking Yeah, he got elected nineteen eighty nine and he

(36:52):
was reelected five times until declining to run for a
seventh term. I can't believe that's even aloud. That's some
fucking synegal ship yo, Like you're straight up the mayor
for most people's like entire teenage in twenties Banana so

(37:16):
Dick Gregory said, I feel that the two party system
is obsolete. The two party system is so corrupted a
moral they cannot solve the problems confronting the masses of
the people in this country. I agree with that. That sounds.
I mean, he's onto something. I think he's onto something.
I mean, like here we are today. Uh, I don't

(37:38):
even want to get in today. I don't even want
to get into today in that like I feel like
it's it's maybe I'm just an an adult now and
like I don't have the rosy I do of all
that anymore. But like, yeah, I feel that ship man.
I feel that well. I mean, you know, because the

(38:00):
whole the whole thing is we need we need people
like you to not be cynical, you know what I'm saying,
Like people like you know, I know. I'm I'm yeah, no, no, no, no, no,
don't get me wrong. I'm revolutionary optionists over here. I
give no fox about the existing quote order. I'm just
about trying to make change through the stake or outside

(38:21):
of it. It's cool. I appreciate this guy that he
was speaking. This truth backing was a NT yet so
he in sixty eight. In sixty eight, he ran for
president of the United States as a writing candidate for
the Freedom and Peace Party, which had broken off from

(38:42):
the Peace and Freedom Party. That sounds ridiculous, but cool. No, man,
if you saw the way these the internal factions of
things like the Democratic Socialists from America, things can't agree
on chit. They don't hate each other, each other's girlfriends
hitting their jewels in their little meetings at the local library.

(39:06):
Then they don't know what's going on. That makes no sense. No,
that's perfect, that's right, exactly how it shouldn't be. Okay.
So in the in the Freedom and Peace Party, he
garnered forty seven thousand votes, including one from Hunter S. Thompson,
and he with fellow activist Mark Lane as his running
mate in some states. Now, the run landed him on

(39:28):
the famed Master List of Nixon's political opponents. So Nrichard
Nixon definitely took Now, I wouldn't say took it seriously,
but you know, these fucking these seventies right winger guys,
you know what I'm saying. They kind of they kind
of were like athletes in that way where they just
like look for any any bit of motivation that they

(39:49):
can to just spur their evil ship, you know what
I'm saying. So I'm pretty sure Nixon was just like,
what the running put them on the list? Put right now?
Do it? Even j Edgar Hoover, like we mentioned earlier,
got it on the fun and he was in the
cross Are so the FBI director who concocted a strange

(40:09):
and a strange plan to potentially neutralize Dick Gregory with
the help of the fucking mafia. Yeah, I made contact
with La Cosa Nostra in order to take down comedian
Dick Gregory. I misheard you at first, and I was like, Oh, sick,
did Gregory formed a coalition him with the mafia to

(40:32):
win the presidency? That's that black Panther ship amazing, But
it's the opposite, And I'm ashamed that. I'm sad the
mafia guys are not. There's like, like we're talking about
like nineteen fifties mafia guys. Like these dudes are like
literally like three like a step removed from Mussolini on

(40:52):
some real ship, Like the Niggas is fascist. Don't don't
let the Godfather movies fool y'all people. The mob was fascist. Um,
Dick Gregory said, do you realize what you have here?
This piece of paper has the director of the most
powerful police agency in the history of the planet proposing

(41:12):
to contact this mafia so they could do work together.
It is pretty fucking wild when you think about it,
Like I know that, I mean on this level, because
like I mean, you know, it's not the first time
that the government saw out the mafia's help or even
got the mafia's help. Um, the mob used to help out,

(41:33):
I forget exactly how so that's my hymn book kicking in.
But the mob used to help out on the docks
in World War two, and like that was like an
official like connect like sort of thing where they were
using their connections to help shipments in the docks and
ship like that. So, I mean, you know, government's teaming
up with militia movements or like organized crime. That doesn't

(41:58):
shock me. I think I think as far as like
just a recounting of his life and times, I think
we'll stop there we'll well, we'll go in and we'll
touch some of the more more activism that he did
as well. He was getting to his uh little health
revolution in the eighties. But we'll be right back with
that after the jump. What is your overall sense of

(42:37):
Dick Gregory now that you I think Dick Gregory did
it right. Man? If I think about it, if every
single one of these cats, if every little Pete and
little Zanne and little you know, barbiturates or whatever got
out here and made a mill and then was like
I'm gonna die for the struggle for civil rights and

(42:58):
like brought all their little millions of seventeen ye olds,
would him marching the streets, marching, you know, occupying city Hall,
chaining themselves to construction equipment to stop the construction of pipelines.
That we would have a whole new we would like,
America would be unrecognizable. We wouldn't have no no medical bankruptcy,

(43:19):
climate change, nobody we worry about it, be super sick everything.
Like literally, if every person did a did Gregory, the
world would be so much better. So the cat you
remember when we were talking about Fred Hampton and ship,
It's like these motherfuckers were young back then, you know,
and like no nobody was saying anything like nobody was

(43:41):
I don't want to say nobody. I wasn't there. I
don't know, but it's just like, you know, it didn't
really seem like people were saying, Man, these kids are
only twenty, you can't expect them to care about anything,
like you know what I'm saying, Like that just this
wasn't a thing like it seemed like there was like
a higher more expectations for young people back then. And
maybe that's not Maybe that in itself isn't a good thing.

(44:03):
Maybe like a lot of these kids, a lot a
lot of these young people back then had to be
grown before their time and ship like that. But god
damn it, it was needed, you know what I mean.
And motherfucker's like I was probably probably highly likely I
wouldn't be talking to y'all right now on this podcast
if it was some of the work that these cats
like did Gregory and then we're doing some of the
sacrifices that they made, you know what I'm saying. So

(44:24):
I appreciate you educating me on him, because you know,
I like studying uh Liberation movement history to remind myself
that you know, I'm trying to fit into those shoes
the best I can and the work that I do,
and to learn about another ancestor that you know, had
his own kind of lane and all this work was
was tight with these brothers like Maga Evers and raising

(44:46):
issues about like the slings of those three members of Cores.
You know, it helps me add context and like grounding
to the work I try to do out here because
I feel like less lonely, like oh this name was
comedian and went out there got hos oiled. All this
ship tussling with the FBI. It's like a sky relief
to like to to know what kind of fight is

(45:08):
being carried on and how it can be carried on,
and that the stuff all folks out here, people like
No Name who I shout out too much. I wonder
to come on the show. Um, we should try to
make that happen. No, she an't coming on the ship.
We ain't nobody. Hey everybody, Um, I don't know like
ever and I trying no name on Twitter. Tell her

(45:30):
I'm her secret best friend. She doesn't know. We're gonna
be best friends, yepp what we are? Tell her to come,
but what so, Yes, it's like very encouraging to know
that who like, you know, to know what kind of
shoes were are out there to be filmed. I guess
what kind of thing have to do a little just
a little speed speed round just to touch on some

(45:52):
of the other things. And he was into all kinds
of ship. He was anti apart side activists. Uh, he
went out was it the Mondiff Stable with Bob Marley,
Patti La Belle, outspoken feminists. He joined Glorious Steinman, Betty Freeman,
Bella Abzug, and other suffragists to lead the National Ego

(46:13):
Rights Amendment March and Ratification Extension. You know, they still
haven't ratified the r A and enough states to be
making an actual constitutional amendment. Oh no, to this day,
let's just shot the sparksment down in night. They still
because not enough states though, like oh well, ratifying equal
rights for women will like destroy the nuclear family, Like

(46:34):
I'm not fitting you, and like at this point in time,
most people have thought, I mean not fought. Most people
have given up on the fight because it's like fucking
forty years ago. But yeah, I know the r A
hasn't even been ratified and enough state legislatures to actually
be in the United States constitutional Amendment Equal Rights and
Women is not is like literally people for decades have

(46:56):
refused to codify it as in the Constitution. Yeah, damn,
that's do a lot of people know that. I don't
think enough people know that. I didn't. I did not
know that til you just said it. Well. I also
feel like feminism has moved beyond like um, like you know,

(47:16):
like the Constitution itself is like a very flawed document
and shit, and like there's other ways to enact like
equal rights than just like putting in the Constitution. I
guess people are more focused on struggles like the struggle
for abortion rights, like concretely, other than putting the e
r A in there and then you've got the Supreme
Court saying, well it don'tly meaning like that, and like

(47:37):
going and striking down road b way to anyway, like
people were just focused on that ship. People are focused
on getting equal pay for equal work, just concretely, rather
than this kind of abstract idea of like the Equal
Rights Amendment. I think it's where the struggle has gone
since then. Um yeah, stuff like that. So I mean
it's wild though that now like equal rights for women,
like people have tried to get in the Constitution for

(47:58):
four decades, five decades, and it's the now. Well, um
oh yeah, he touched on Native American rights issues. Nineteen
sixty six, Gregory and his wife were arrested for legal
net fishing alongside the Nisqually people in Washington State and
a protest fishing pollution. Two thousand eight, Gregory stated that

(48:21):
he believes the air pollution in international water contamination with
heavy metals such as lead and possibly magnesium or magnees
maybe used against Black Americans, especially in urban neighborhoods. Um,
we gotta do a whole nother We got another episodes
on environmental right, you know you heard about that. Did
you ever hear about that study where they we're studying

(48:45):
like the rise of violent crime and lead in poisoning? Yeah,
connection we all got sh Baltimore, Detroit, Yeah we should.
Environmental racism is a really interesting issue in the ways
that I'm starting to content I'm starting to like increasingly
look at public safety issues to the lens of public health,
Like because you know, if somebody gets shot, they gotta

(49:08):
go hospital. That's a help issue. Somebody has prama because
their house got shot up. Now they've got mental health problems.
Now they're like smoking crack because they're threat out as
a public health issue. And so like environmental like racism
in the way that it affects public health, which then
affect issues of violence and public safety, is a very
interesting topic that we absolutely will come back to in

(49:31):
Oh my god, the last year ever negotiated for the
hostages in the Iran hostage crisis in nine what excuse me?
He also did some hunger strikes for that um and
then that brings us into I guess I don't want
to say like what he's most known for, because like

(49:52):
there is a whole generation. There's like a generation. There's
like the generation that we would probably refer to as
boomers probably know Dick Gregory Moore for being a civil
rights activist and a comedian. But I guess I would say,
like my dad's generation and my mom's generation, they more

(50:13):
like he that's Dick. That's when the Dick Gregory health
ship was like the boot. So in nineteen eighty four
he founded the Health Enterprise, Incorporated, a company that distributed
weight loss products. With this company, Gregory made efforts to
improve the life expectancy of African Americans, which he believed
was being hindered by poor nutrition and drugs and alcohol abuse.

(50:34):
Night five, Gregory introduced the slim Safe Bohemian diet. Have
you heard of that? You know, what is that? Well?
That was the thing. It's like this concoction that the
breather made of like a bunch of viterterans and minerals
and herbal stuff, all of that ship. And then he
teamed together with like an actual scientist Nigga who like,
you know, refined the formula ship and they made like

(50:54):
a weight loss dietary like like pretty much like a
fucking smoothie type. Before that was the ship, before that
was a thing, and he made that it was multiple dimensional.
He would end up selling that company for thirty million
dollars and stuff like that. But it was like, I mean,

(51:16):
you know, that whole thing was revolutionary. I mean it
got to the point where you know, like he had
like a hotline where people were calling him to help
help them lose weight. There's one famous story of a
gentleman who was a thousand pounds. Let me see if
I can find his name, and are you well, I
mean sorry, but yeah, yeah, um, what is the name

(51:42):
of this guy, Mick Mickey, that's that s title Mickey style.
So this dude was more bilioed beasts, Like he tripped
and fell in his apartment and ended up getting stuck
in a doorway and it took like five rescue workers
to cut him out and ship like that, and it
was this whole big story in the eighties and stuff

(52:03):
like that. And famously Dick Gregory helped this guy lose
like four hundred pounds or something like that. He eventually,
obviously from the from being that large, he would die
I think like two years later, but it was a
huge press story about how Dick Gregor was trying to
help this guy, and so I was more stuff that
put him on the map. As Dick Gregory got older,

(52:26):
you know, the I guess, like the suave, smooth, devonier
aspects of his his public personality started to kind of fade,
just as you know, naturally like people get older. He
started getting, um, your very very early signs of Alzheimer's
and stuff like that, so he started becoming more angry

(52:50):
and like like if you you can there's like a
whole there's a whole ton of interviews that you can
watch with white haired old Dick Gregory just being like
angry old black man, you know what I'm saying. But
at this point, at this point, you know, figuratively speaking,
he had fuck you money. So he he used this

(53:11):
aspect of his career to get back into comedy. So
like you know, like before before Dick Gray group Gregory
went out like in the you know, the two thousand fifteens,
sixteen seventeens, he was back on the stand up circuit
doing doing Ship and like I mean, the material that
he was doing was literally I'm old, I'm black, and

(53:33):
I've been around to see all of it. Y'all gonna
sit here and listen to what the funk I have
to say. It's funny. Ship that reminds me so much
of when I met John Carlos. If you don't recall,
is the Olympic um athlete. I think he's a runner
that you know, he held us fist up and the
end he accepted his his his medal at the at

(53:54):
the Olympics um and that like he so we were
to schedule to give talks and I think it was
a University of New Mexico, and so I was nervous
in my first talk at university that flew me out
to New Mexico and my oh ship, this big, big ship.
I wrote my whole thing down. I was like, all nervous,
I get up there and get my old speech, and
then this thing comes up after me and talks to

(54:16):
like forty five minutes about like bitches and like like
literally bitches, and I'm not even sure. It's like in
there's a banquet hall full of like full of all
the administrators and faculty and ship. So I'm like, yo,
one time myself, this bitch getting fucking personal. It was crazy. Anyway,
while am I talking about so, I mean it's just,

(54:39):
you know, getting old seems cool. I mean if I
get to get old, that'd be dope, because you know,
I'm never I'm not sure sometimes um but yeah, no, no,
that makes sense. That makes sense. So immediately she had
the outlet that it could be channeled into something that
everybody could share it. There's them. There is a twenty

(54:59):
twenty documentary on Dick Gregory. Let me get the name
for you for you all. The actually film is called
The One and Only Dick Gregory. You guys should check
that out. I watched it in preparation for this, But
there is like a really really funny scene where, you know,

(55:22):
throughout the throughout the documentary, you know, you obviously have
a bunch of people who knew him commenting, you know,
as they're telling the story of his life, right, and
Kevin Hart and Chris Rock and who is the third, motherfucker?
Who's the third? I can't remember, I can't remember, but
you know one of those comedian dudes, right, they're, they're, they're,
they're appearing throughout the documentary. But then it gets to

(55:44):
the point where they start talking about when you know,
he got older and started getting more angry and the
alzheimers started kicking in, he started doing more comedy shows.
And that ship is funny because when you hear Kevin
Hart and these guys talking about just interacting with the
Gregory at that stage in his life, just having him like,
you know, he would just he would just get you,
just sit you down and be like, what is it,

(56:05):
you little motherfucker? I want you to understand it. This
j ain't is easier, you young motherfucker. You mother like
like that was just this whole thing, amazing, amazing, amazing.
L P did Gregory. Mr Claxton, I appreciate learning about
you today. I hope you rested well with the ancestors.

(56:26):
I appreciate your inspiration, will carry your fight forward to struggle.
Right thing over is the Jews Revolution? No, no, not
at all, Um, We've got no music angle for this episode,
but I did just want to telling you what Dick
Gregory stops on hip hop wark. Right. So, Dick Gregory

(56:50):
was I don't want to say he was a hip
hop advocate, but he was very, very vehemently against making
hip hop responsible for the world's problems, you know what
I'm saying. Like he he was, he was. He was
one of those cats who was like man the blues
music that I was listening to when I was a kid.

(57:14):
They were saying the same ship that hip hop casts
are saying, like the same same exact type of ship.
So it doesn't make any sense for us to try
to act like hip hop is like, you know, for
for prude, prude people or whatever whatever he's like. It
doesn't make any sense for people to act like what
hip hop is bringing to the table is something new
or something that's so like uniquely new and vulgar that

(57:37):
we've never seen it before because he's like hip hop
never invented any cuss word. You know. That's a beautiful metaphor,
like the like hip hop didn't invent any cussboard, Like
hip hop didn't invent any of the ship it talks about.
It just inherited it from capitalism in the streets. Um.
It may now be a perpetual cycle of people hearing

(57:57):
the music and then going out and doing the ship
that thinks cool. Those little peeps at it or whatever,
little people dead to bring it up like I just
saw him hating on him and he's dead man, that's
not cool. I'm sorry. It's rap music right now, you
ain't ready well, speaking of rap music, I feel like
rapping because that is it for this episode. We are done,

(58:19):
so Sun. We will see y'all next week. But you
know we you know, we we gotta hit you with
the bars before we close it off. Right, check us
on out. Joe hey, yo, let me talk you about

(58:40):
with nicker name Clacton part term comedian and the civil
rights actors. I'd thought to know him, but you didn't
know be half of it. Back in university he was
want to track a yip. But after this hawd everybody
get from the laughter in the commedy clubs from here
to over. The Africa never started to wait from talking
about his braces, even though they try to silence him
and put him in a casket after I was after

(59:00):
how does Robin mega? But suddenly he endeavor trying to
make everything better. Today we still remember as many contributions
Dick Gregory are we spoke to yo. I'm gonna rock
the ship freshly and make it a bit sketchy and
I like him. Thick, ease up on that. Dick Gregory.
Speaking of Dick, Yeah, he's seeming legit and he even
dropping knowledge when he's speaking to kids. But Mafia and
the feeds, they were thinking a hit because he said

(59:22):
fun Vietnam. He don't think that it's hip. We're talking
about a lifetime as rare as a fucking thunder strike.
He was fighting fascists who were trying to plunder rights
the ships wild than It even made me wonder like
how does nigga even have the strength to do a
hunger strike? So if you wonder how they did in
the days, whether it's integration or a minimum ways, just
salut Dick Gregory's the motherfuck truth on. My name is

(59:46):
Dope Knight and y'all have been listening to Waiting on
Reparations and hopefully you're waiting on them too. It we
all waiting on them. We don't get them down. Thank
you guys for rocket See you next week. Hey. Waiting
on Reparations is the production of I Heart Radio. For

(01:00:06):
more podcasts from my heart Radio, check out the i
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your
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