Every Day Is Special: October 12 – Remembering Dick Gregory

October 12 – Remembering Dick Gregory

Posted October 12, 2017

Today would have been Dick Gregory's 85th birthday, but he died earlier this year. He had a long life full of achievements.

I mean, check him out: Dick Gregory was a comedian, actor, writer, speaker, civil rights activist, social critic, and an entrepreneur. Oh, and a conspiracy theorist. And maybe a "woo" peddler?

I don't want the last two items of this list (conspiracy theorist / woo peddler) to take away from the other stuff. Gregory was incredibly important in so many ways. I just wanted to point out that we can remember people for who they truly were - the good and the not-so-good. If we admire and celebrate someone for X, Y, and Z, that doesn't necessarily mean that that person is correct about topics A, B, or C...right?

We cannot have black-and-white thinking. Even smart people can be guilty of illogical or wishful thinking. Even ethical people can make mistakes.

The good...

There are a lot of admirable things achieved by Dick Gregory:

He was a pioneer in stand-up comedy that dealt with racism.

He was the first black comedian to successfully cross over from all-black audiences to white audiences (and, I presume, mixed audiences!).

He was the first black performer to do what so many white celebrities have done: after performing onTonight Starring Jack Paar, he was asked to stay, to sit on the (famous) sofa and talk with Paar. And the reason he was the first is because he refused to do the show until he was promised that he would do the sit-and-chat bit, too.

He was one of the first celebrities to dive into the 1960s political activism, protesting racial injustice, the Vietnam War, economic inequality, and sexism. As a part of his protests, he sometimes went on hunger strikes, and he was barred from entering / performing in Australia, because the government feared that he would stir up demonstrations.

He even ran for political office. In 1967, Gregory ran for Mayor of Chicago. He lost. In 1968, he ran for President of the United States as a write-in candidate of the Freedom and Peace Party (which had broken off from the larger or longer-lasting Peace and Freedom Party). Of course, he lost this race, too - but he did get tens of thousands of votes!

By the way...

When Gregory wrote about the presidential run, in his book Write Me In, he told of a publicity stunt run by his campaign, which printed dollar bills with Gregory's image on them instead of George Washington's. The bills were enough like actual money that they actually worked in dollar-cashing machines of the time! So officers had to seize all the funny money. Luckily, Gregory did not get arrested for counterfeiting money (he'd been arrested multiple times for protest-related activities); naturally, nobody intended that the fake money would fool anyone.

Gregory joked that "everyone knows a black man will never be on a U.S. bill." Actually, he's wrong about that: A redesign of the $20 bill is in the works, with Harriet Tubman (a black woman) slated to appear on the front of the bill. Also in the works: Sojourner Truth (a black woman) will appear with four other women's-suffrage-activists on the back of the $10 bill; opera singer Marian Anderson (a black woman) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (finally! a black man!) will appear on the back of the redesigned $5.

(I am hoping-hoping-hoping that the current administration, which seems determined to overthrow everything achieved during Obama's presidency, doesn't derail these currency decisions!)

The bad...

Dick Gregory supported some conspiracy theories, including the ideas that federal agents were responsible for the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcom X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. He said that the federal government blew up the levees in New Orleans, during Hurricane Katrina, and he dabbled in a bunch of other conspiracy theories. He was certain that the moon landings were faked. He even thought that the 9/11 attack was an inside job.

Obviously, the federal government of the U.S. isn't even close to being innocent of all wrong-doing, and obviously there have been some attempted cover-ups that we've eventually unravelled, so it makes sense that there have been a few cover-ups that we don't suspect, as well. But a lot of the things Gregory said and wrote on these topics shows that he wasn't very careful about hard facts and evidence. In my opinion, he had too much cynicism about the government, plus not enough background in science to be trusted on these topics.

Here's an example: Gregory said, "Those images of dust rising and falling again when that astronaut steps on the planet could not be accurate because there’s no gravity on the moon, and how could there be all those pictures with shadows when the moon is completely dark?"

But there is gravity on the Moon - only about one sixth of the Earth's gravity, but still gravity! Also, the Moon isn't "completely dark"! During the long lunar day, the Sun lights up the lunar landscapes, and objects such as rocks and lunar landers cast shadows. Gregory's skepticism about the Moon landings seems to be founded mostly on his misunderstandings of astronomy and physics.

Another area in which Gregory wasn't very careful about evidence was in health and nutrition. He not only made claims about cancer treatment that don't stand up to experimental results, but he also started a company that manufactured weight-loss products that have been described as "profitable rot." The latter is what I was referring to when I said that Gregory may have been a "woo" peddler. ("Woo" is stuff that has no basis in fact but that is still believed by many. Medical woo is, of course, especially dangerous.)

All in all...

Even though Dick Gregory had some failings and was wrong about some aspects of life, the universe, and everything, he had a huge passion for peace and for social justice. He was willing to endure discomfort and even to go to jail for his causes; he worked hard for women's rights, although he was a man; he took risks and did what was right (or what he thought was right) rather than what was easy, or popular.