All language subtitles for The.One.And.Only.Dick.Gregory.2021.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-YTS.MX

up-tempo classical music

[Lipsyte] I met Dick Gregory
for the first time

on the evening
of September 16, 1963.

At the time,
Greg was the hottest comedian

in the country,
and he had signed

the typical publishing contract

for one of those humorous
rags-to-riches autobiography.

And the problem
was that Greg had rejected

every writer maybe in America,
and finally the publisher

scraped the bottom of the barrel
with me.

I was a 25-year-old sportswriter

at The New York Times,

and I went up to his hotel room.

He was on his bed. He was
curled up in a fetal position.

He was wearing only underwear,
and he was crying.

I sat down in a chair
next to the bed,

and I asked why he was crying,

and he said, "Didn't you read
about the four little girls

who were murdered yesterday
in a Birmingham church?"

And he just kind of rolled over
on his back,

and for the next hour,
he just talked to the ceiling.

Mostly I just listened.
I was fascinated.

This man was angry.
He was passionate.

He was not
the cool, slangy hipster

who was on the nightclub stages,

and I really do believe that
he had missions to accomplish,

and it wasn't just making jokes.

When they say this show
features living color,

you better believe it.

[laughter]

Of course, back in my hometown,

we had what you call
the friendly Ku Klux Klan.

Oh, yeah, they'll come
to your house to burn a cross.

If they didn't have no matches,

they'd knock on your door
and ask you for a pack.

Dick was the first one
that stepped in that I knew of

that made
political and social issues

the subject of his humor.

Found out that cold weather
makes it very nice

for race relations.

But last month when it was
15 below zero in Chicago,

I walked out of a nightclub.
A drunk walked up to me,

said, "Why don't you get back
to Africa where you belong

and take me with you?"

[audience laughter]

Dick Gregory was one of
the greatest political comedians

to ever live.

There are a lot of comedians
in the history of comedy,

who are "political comedians,"

but they're not actually
taking a side.

Dick Gregory was always
taking a side

and then suffering the
consequence of taking that side.

I chose to be an agitator.

Next time you put
your underwear

in the washing machine,
take the agitator out,

and all you gon' end up with
is some dirty, wet drawers.

Are you out to give people
a good laugh?

Are you out to make
a very definite

and a very pungent point,

or is it a combination
of the two?

I happen to be
a very firm believer--

believe that you can't laugh
social problems

out of existence,

and the day we find
a cure for cancer,

it won't be through jokes.

It'll be
through hard, sincere work.

For him, making people laugh
wasn't enough.

To be out there
on the front lines

of the civil rights movement,

he made a huge sacrifice.

We've seen plenty
of entertainers march

and march repeatedly
and always, always go back

to the big money
of show business.

But we do have this one example
of this one person

who went all the way with it.

[Dick] Thank this movement--

I'm not talking about the ones
we know about.

Talking about the ones
we don't know about.

Facts are, there is a God
that know all of the names,

and because of this movement,
it gave me a turtle philosophy.

Hard on the outside,
soft on the inside,

and willing to stick
your neck out.

That's what it's about.
Huh? That's what it's about.

[man] Ah! Ladies and gentlemen,
Dick Gregory!

[cheers and applause]

Dick Gregory!

Dick Gregory!

[cheers and applause
subside]

[click]

This is Bob Lipsyte,
room 1705,

the Hotel Beverly
in New York City, 1963.

When you first tried
to get a job

with the kind of jokes
that you do,

I imagine it was
kind of tough.

So how did you break through
to the big white clubs?

[Dick] Biggest break I had
was I opened up

at the Playboy Club
for one night

to fill in for a comic
in Chicago,

and everyone who had heard
my act told me, "Don't go on,

"because we have
a Southern convention in town,

and the room is filled
with Southerners."

[Lipsyte] A room full
of Southerners?

[Dick] A room full
of Southerners.

[Lipsyte] So what happened?

upbeat jazz music

[Dick] So the Playboy Club,

it was... it was the only one
in the country,

and it was just getting started,

and it was, like,
the talk of America.

And they said they'd pay me $50,

and I couldn't believe it was
that much money in the world.

He was invited to do
the Playboy Club.

Mr. Hefner gave my father
the opportunity

to come and do flat-foot,
stare-you-in-the-eye comedy.

He jumps onto the stage
on a night

that they'd rather he hadn't.

[Dick] The room that I was
working had been rented out

to a frozen food convention.

It was a delegation
from the South.

ominous music

Victor Lownes said to me,

"Hefner told me to tell you, you
don't have to go on tonight."

And he said, "We're sorry,
but we rented the room out

to a Southern delegation."

And I just pushed him
out the way

and said, "You don't know what
I went through to get here."

And, uh, got up on the stage
and started talking.

Got a little snow down
in Georgia

for the first time
in a hundred years.

[man in audience
shouts indistinctly]

[Dick] Oh, it's not funny.

Can you imagine what it feels
like being my color

- in an all-white Georgia?
- [audience chuckles]

Hell, I had a cousin
damn near got killed

after that first snow.

He thought he was leaning
up against a snowbank,

and it turned out to be
a Ku Klux Klan rally.

[laughter]

Well, I remember when I was
a kid back home.

It got so cold one night,
the Ku Klux Klan

tried to burn a cross
on our front porch,

and we opened the door and told
'em, "Bring it inside."

[laughter]

I go on at eight o'clock.

At ten o'clock that night,
I'm still on.

They are just going off.

At eleven o'clock that night,
they called Hefner.

They said,
"You better get over here.

Something's happening."

And nobody can believe
that this Black comic

can take this room
of Southern white men.

[Christian] The door was open.

Dick Gregory
walked off that stage

and never looked back the same.

[Dick]
The press just went insane.

Time Magazine wrote
about my act,

and then Jack Paar picked it up,

which was probably the most
powerful personality on TV.

[Christian]
My father loved Jack Paar.

He loved Mr. Paar's smoothness,
his delivery, his timing.

[telephone rings]

[Dick] I got a call
from the Jack Paar show.

"Dick, he wants you
on the show."

I said, "Well, tell him
I don't wanna be on the show."

Because a negro had never
sit down on the couch

on that show.

So I hung up.

And I'm crying now,
'cause I mean, I knew

what it would be to my career
not to go on that show.

Then the phone rings back,
and it's Jack Paar.

"What do you mean,
you don't wanna go on the show?"

"Negroes never sit down."

He said, "Come on in.
You can sit down with me."

theme music plays

[applause]

[applause subsides]

It was, like, so wild.

I just finished doing
the one-nighters

at the colleges
all across the country,

and last week,
I worked Brown University.

But the way I got this booking,
they called my office.

It just so happened, I happened
to have been in the office.

And I picked up the phone,
and the guy said,

"I wonder if we can get

Dick Gregory to do a concert
in Brown."

[laughter]

And I said how else?

[laughter]

Dick Gregory changed
the entire landscape

of standup comedy
by just walking through the door

and taking up so much space that
more people can come through.

[Hart] When Dick Gregory
was doing comedy,

there was a lack of diversity.

He was in the game at the time

when there wasn't many of us
in it.

It was because of the change
that he was a part of making

that I'm able to do what I do.

Well, since we first met, things
have sure happened for you.

That's a nice apartment you got.

- Oh, thank you.
- What kind of car you got?

- A Lincoln, naturally.
- No, well, that's...

[laughter]

What's overlooked is
how unafraid he was

to not only call
white people out,

but he wasn't afraid
to call Black folks out.

Of course, if you get
some money, you get a Lincoln.

Oh, you're a good audience
tonight,

and treat me nice,

because with President Kennedy's
new housing bill,

I might be your neighbor now.

[laughter]

You saw it here
for the first time

from a Black person's mouth

what life is like in America
from a humorous standpoint.

NBC got so many calls,
their switchboard blew out.

Now I did not know
if you sit on the couch,

you become the family.

And sitting on that couch,

my salary jumped from
$250 a week to $5,000 a night.

That's the power of that show.

I couldn't believe it
slow funk music

I don't know what went
through Paar's mind

when he said,
"I want him on the show."

Okay.

[jet roaring]

Paar's show and a jet plane
in the same day.

To get on a jet, see,
like, the height

of a poor man's ambition
is to be on a jet,

like standing outside
the world looking in.

[man] Mike Wallace interview
with guest Dick Gregory,

take one.

[Wallace] Until how recently--
I mean this quite seriously--

was money a problem for you?

[Dick] Up until a month ago.

[Wallace] Up until a month ago?

[Dick] Last year, I think
I cleared about $1,500.

[Wallace] From $1,500
to half a million dollars

in one year.

- You must be a happy fella.
- I'm very happy.

When I was young,
we were poor. We were hungry.

We were raggedy, you know?
And, uh, and, well, you know,

matter of fact, the best day
we had in our house

was Halloween, you know?

[laughter]

In fact, that was the day you
could wear your natural clothes

and everybody thought you was
dressed for the occasion, right?

[laughter]

Ooh, look at Richard,
got on shoes

look just like feet.

[laughter and applause]

dramatic music

[Christian] My father had an
extremely difficult childhood.

He was born in 1932, which was
literally the poorest year

of the Great Depression.

He used to always say,
in order to know happiness,

you have to have known sadness.

In order to have known health,

you had to experience
sickness and disease.

You can't truly appreciate
any spectrum of life

unless you'd spent some time
on both sides.

[Dick]
I didn't like where I lived.

I didn't like my mama.
I didn't like none of that.

You know,
so I'd just go walking

and walking and walking
and walking.

So I started running.

And so next thing I knew, I was
running and running and running.

My father used to take us
on these mandatory runs.

He taught us how to run.

Uh, we had to spend a great deal
of time in nature,

and particularly running.

Letting your feet touch
that ground

and feeling that cosmic force
coming up through the roots

into our feet--
he wanted us to feel that.

Growing up in extreme times,

I really do believe

running became his way
of reinventing himself.

My dad had two weapons. He could
either run like the wind,

or that razor-sharp tongue
of his could lay into you.

[Dick] Kids used to
pick on me a lot.

"My daddy's not home.

You know, I'm gonna leave.
"Haven't got him with me.

So how can I get him with me?"

I laid home in bed one night,
and I figured it out.

I start making jokes about me
not having no daddy,

how poor we were,
and then I noticed that

once you get a man
laughing with you,

it's hard for him to laugh
at you.

And the whole thing
changed then.

Can you remember
when you first stood up

and told jokes to an audience?
When was that?

Oh, yeah, first time I told
jokes to an audience

was in, uh, 1959.

funk music

[Dick] I had never had
nightclub life.

I never smoked. I never drank.

And so I went to a nightclub
one night, South Side Chicago,

and I saw the Black comic
come out.

Everybody got quiet.

And I said, God, what
a lovely way to make a living.

jazz music

So I went out
to a real small nightclub,

which was the Esquire,
and I told the guy

I was this big-time comedian,
and he let me up on the stage.

And I was funny.

I went out on the stage,
and I tried to look as funny

as I could, so I took...
I took some white buck shoes,

and I painted 'em powder blue,

and I put
some big suspenders on

and a big cap, you see?

Because, you see,
in the low income nightclub,

the brother got a lot
of problems on his mind,

and he's off from work,
and he will out-talk you

if you don't come out there
and shock him into his thing.

He gave me a job.

And the next thing I knew,
I wasn't funny.

When you're not a comedian,

but when you become
a profession,

then you have a challenge
to make them laugh, you know?

You could have a 5-year-old son
that's a marvelous piano player,

and you could bring him here,

and everybody would listen
to him and say,

"Beautiful, beautiful,"
but put him in Carnegie Hall

at $5 a ticket,
and, uh, we might decide

he don't play that well,
you know?

And so this is what happened
to me.

So those early days
at the Esquire

was really learning
the audience,

but most of all,
learning timing.

It's the timing,
breathing properly,

learning how to play a joke,
how to play it with your face,

how to play it with your body.

When I used to smoke cigarettes,

I wasn't aware
until I stopped smoking

how much I used that cigarette
for timing.

If I could believe everything
everybody told me,

we wouldn't have a racial
problem in this country.

'Cause everybody I meet
in the nightclub,

after they get drunk,
they all tell me the same thing.

"Greg, some of my best friends
are colored."

[laughter]

Mike, you know and I know

there's not that many of us
to go around.

[laughter]

[Rock] He was a real cool cat,
like another level of smooth.

'Cause most Black comics come
from a tradition of preachers,

so they're loud, and they talk
a certain way and...

and they were there
for five, seven minutes,

and they had to get
your attention in a certain way.

With Dick Gregory, he had
the same five or seven minutes,

but he really took his time.

Excuse me.

I have to smoke here because
I made the great mistake

of writing off 180 cartons
on my income tax.

[laughter]

And then the Internal Revenue
boys told me

every time they see me,
I'd better be smoking.

[laughter]

[Chapelle] Dick Gregory,
real handsome guy.

Rock a suit onstage,
smoke a cigarette onstage.

There's a few comics
that did that,

they looked real suave
when they'd do it.

They timed themselves
with their cigarettes

to say a funny joke
and the punchline hits,

and he was one of the guys
who just did it.

When you stop and think,

football's a fair sport
for my people.

How many sports in the world,
a negro can chase a white man

and 40,000 people stand up
and cheered?

[laughter and applause]

[Rock] Chappelle and Gregory
have a lot in common.

Dave and Dick have this really,
like, goddamn,

you motherfuckers are relaxed.

I kinda perform like
they're gonna

take the stage from me
at any moment.

Like, I've never been
that comfortable.

[Bell] Dick Gregory was
a pioneer in political comedy.

He doesn't get enough credit
for being the bridge

for Black comedians to come out
of the Chitlin' Circuit.

He wasn't moving around a lot.

He wasn't tap dancing. He's not,
like, selling out Black folks.

In fact, he's standing up
for Black folks by saying,

"I'm going to do
the same things I do

in front of a Black audience
here,

and they're actually
more powerful here

because the stakes are higher.

20 years ago,

the light-complected negro
had it made.

Today it's
the dark-complected negro

simply because of
government contracts.

In order for big business to get
good government contracts,

today you'd have to hire negro
and white on an equal basis.

So they go out and get
the blackest cat they can find.

[laughter]

So when that government
inspector walk in that plant,

he can see him
seven blocks away.

[laughter]

"Sir, you got one!"
"Darn right, we had one."

Oh.

[laughter and applause]

His stage presence was, like,
just so smooth.

I'll say thank you very much,
but never clap for me.

Just take me to lunch when
it's not Brotherhood Week.

He's saying powerful commentary.
It's like, damn,

he's talking to these
white people like that?

Where is he? Dick Gregory!

Well, will you welcome now,
please,

on the stage of
the Little Theatre, Mister...

Dick Gregory.

[applause]

[Dick] I developed quick,
watching television,

Paar's show,
all the comedy shows,

Ed Sullivan,
every form of entertainment

I could watch,
catching the people

and developing
new material on 'em.

Next thing I knew, I had me
a little following going for me.

By Christmas of '58,
I could taste that fame.

One Sunday afternoon,
a girl walked in there.

Lillian Gregory was,

in the truest sense,

Dick Gregory's foundation.

If you would call Greg
in one city

and ask him where he was
going next, he never knew.

He'd say, "Call Lill."

Every phone call I had
with Greg,

Lill was on the phone.

At some point in the call,
he'd say,

"Lill, can you patch in
Mark Lane?"

And, you know,
she was part of him.

He could not have lived
the life he did,

nor could he have accomplished

the things that he did
without Lill.

In 1957, I was a secretary
at the University of Chicago,

and he was running

on the University of Chicago
track team,

and also he was appearing
in a nightclub

called the Esquire
on the South Side of Chicago.

I really hadn't heard anything
about him before,

but he was performing, and I--

you know, and I really
interested in him,

and, uh, he came over
to the table and talked

to my sister and a few other
friends that were with us,

and then, in fact, I think
I came back the next night also.

slow jazz music

[Dick] That's why
it's always so nice

to be polite to people.

Because in walking
to that table,

I didn't know I was
gonna meet my wife.

[Lillian] We were married in
February 2, 1959.

[Dick] Have you checked out
the price of onions lately?

You believe onions?

'Cause onions are still how
my wife used to cry

when she'd peel 'em.
She cry when she buy 'em now.

[laughter]

[Christian] My mother worked
at the University of Chicago,

and my father liked that.

My father always liked
intellect.

She would type up his shows
for that night.

[Lillian] I used to go by
and see him after a night

after I'd get off of work,

and, uh,
I would always bring him

a lot of magazines and things.

He was always very interested

in what was going on
in the world.

[Christian]
My dad had a routine.

He would look at the newspapers.

He would highlight
and he would extract

that evening's show
based on the front page.

Kennedy and Khruschev
is arguing over Berlin,

and pretty frightening.

I think both these men
have the one button

they can push and do away
with the whole world.

And the frightening thing
about it

is Kennedy's button is located
in Caroline's playroom.

[laughter]

He had that cool monotone,
and he'd tell a little story,

and once he had you seduced
into the story he was telling,

he would pop the color thing
on you.

A lot of people got caught
right in the middle

of loving what he was doing
and then being given a message.

And he was a genius at that.

And we have a lot of
racial prejudice up north,

but we're so clever with it.

Take my old pal in Chicago.

I mean, you can't see it
just... just going in there.

But when negroes in Chicago
move into one large area,

and it look like we might
control the votes,

they don't say anything to us.

They have a slum clearance.

[laughter]

- [cheers and applause]
- Mr. Tan? Mr. Tan?

- Man, Tanman Moreland.
- Hey, Nipsey Russell.

- Where have you been?
- What do you wanna know?

- What... What you wanna--
- Where have you been?

What do you know
where I've been for?

[Dick] You show nothing in
this country but my bad.

Show my good. Show my good.

And we weren't really saying
take "Amos 'n' Andy" off.

We were saying balance it out.

Put the man on there
that's splitting all the verbs.

But also, let me see
my Ralph Bunche.

Let me hear my Marian Anderson.

Get me a negro news commentator.

Then balance it out.

See, wherever we call
big crimes,

which is pretty cool,
and, uh, we have small crimes,

- which they hang you for.
- [laughter]

No, no, I mean, like
a guy go out,

and he's been on relief,
and his check hasn't shown up

in, like, six months.

His war disability check
haven't shown in a year.

And he sticks up a bank
for about $20,000.

They catch him. He get about
four years in Alcatraz.

The president of that same bank
embezzled it

for, like, $2 million, he get
three years' suspended sentence.

[laughter and applause]

[Christian] He took that power
at the height of his career

to do a step that most people
didn't see coming.

Pretty early on, he was willing
to give his time,

which was money,
when you were an entertainer

who could be booked probably
three or four different cities

in any given night.

And then in the fall of 1962,
he goes down to Mississippi,

and that will change his life.

ominous music

[Dick] Everything was all right,
but, uh, something missing.

[Christian]
The folks in the North

continued to see the images
in the news reports

of what was happening
down South.

See, just one thing
I have learned.

They're not bad folks,

provided you can treat
a negro like a nigger.

It was a time of terror,

and I'm not exaggerating
with that.

Um... the system, as it was,
was determined

not to allow people of color

the opportunity to register
and to vote.

The clerk, who might have had
a sixth grade education,

and a person of color may have
had a college education,

could simply throw
your sheet out.

[man] I would think certainly,

that it would not be
for the welfare

of any community to have
illiterate, uneducated people

to be able to vote.

[Dick] The demonstrations
started in Jackson, Mississippi.

I read about 'em,
I listened to 'em on the radio,

I looked at 'em on TV.

And I told myself,
what those negroes do down there

don't affect my life.

I was definitely afraid.

It seems like he was getting
more and more aware

of the civil rights thing,
I guess maybe during the time

that Martin Luther King
came into being,

and being known.

The future of
the United States of America

may well be determined here
in Mississippi.

But it's here that democracy

faces its most
serious challenge.

And I realized if I can
subject myself

to go to a foreign country,
lay on some cold dirt,

take a chance of losing my life
to guarantee some foreigner

a better way of life than
my own family has in America,

then it's a must
that I get involved.

He was a very wealthy man.

When Medgar called him,

he could have sent a check.

Instead he went to Mississippi
and put his life on the line.

He never stopped.

From the moment
he went to Mississippi,

he never stopped putting
his life on the line.

[man] Where you're going, have
you been given any warning?

I just play it by ear, and I
think if I can sit in a room

and entertain a room full
of drunks,

I can go to Mississippi
in a dry state. [laughs]

[jet roaring]

[Christian]
I don't think in 1962

my father thought
an invitation he received

from Medgar Evers

to come and speak
at voter registration rallies

in Jackson, Mississippi,
was gonna change his life.

[Evers] Now for many of us
who have gone overseas,

fought for this country,
fought for Mississippi,

we fought for Alabama,
we fought for North Carolina,

we fought for Illinois,

and we fought for every state
in this union.

[Christian]
Medgar being a sergeant

who had fought
in the Korean War,

Medgar was fearless. Medgar was
the first person I ever heard

my father describe
as if they were superhuman.

The two of them hit it off.

They were... brothers.

Stronger, I believe, than blood.

Both the same goal--justice.

Dick knew how to take
a heated issue,

bring humor, and move forward.

It encouraged people.

See, I had a dream
about Clark last night.

[laughter]

I was... I was dreaming that
this...

this white citizen council guy

who was drunk,
driving about 90 miles an hour

and he hit two demonstrators
accidentally,

- didn't mean to.
- [man] Go ahead.

And Clark showed up,
and one demonstrator

flew about 500 yards in the air
and bounced off in the field,

and the other demonstrator
came through

the dashboard window
and landed in the front seat.

And Clark got to whuppin'
this cat about being drunk

until he found out that

those were two colored cats
he had hit.

And he went and he arrested
the one colored guy

that was 500 yards down the road

for leaving the scene
of an accident.

[laughter,
scattered applause]

And the one that came
through the windshield,

he booked him
for breaking and entering.

[laughter and applause]

[Dick] I had no intentions
on demonstrating.

None whatsoever.

I was scared enough just knowing

I was going to an area where
there were demonstrations.

And after speaking
to these people that night

and seeing the beauty
of these people

and seeing the police
harassment at the church,

and not one negro doctor

which means when these
negro demonstrate,

that mean they forfeiting
all their medical attention,

I'm looking at a man,
that when he demonstrates,

he's gonna get his name
and his picture in the paper.

And if I must die
with him, man,

I couldn't think of
a better way of dying.

In doing this, I know you'll
kill yourself in show business.

And I called up Lill,
and I said, "Honey,

are you willing to eat in a tent

and go back to where we were
for right?"

And she said yes.

She told me as she's told me
so many other times,

that the true test of a rich man
is strip him of all his wealth,

then see how much he's worth.

[static]

[amplified voice]
This is an announcement.

We will ask you to proceed
in smaller groups.

And a bunch of illiterate whites
that probably couldn't even

pass the test themselves.
That's what you're seeing.

- Guns and sticks.
- Guns and sticks.

- In America.
- Exactly.

- [man] Yes, man.
- Get a good look at their faces

so the rest of the world
can see it.

- Yeah.
- See what they look like.

[Lipsyte] A civil rights
demonstration in the South

was in grave danger.

Dogs, fire hoses, truncheons,
guns,

but if Dick Gregory flew down

to wherever, Mississippi,

for a rights demonstration,

one of the network news crews
would follow.

But he also knew
that the cameras being on

does not protect me
from getting hurt or killed.

[indistinct conversations]

[Lillian] When I'd see things
on TV of him being arrested,

you know, I really would get
a little upset,

and, uh, at that time,
we just had two children

and, you know, "Why is Daddy,

you know, why are
they putting him in jail?"

[Dick]
This is where we are today.

This is what we fightin' for...

to free this country.

Make this country
America the beautiful.

He upset people. He really made
people wanna kill him.

I mean, I got hundreds
of death threats

about how they were gonna
kill him at a certain place.

[Lillian] People would call.

They were gon' come
kill all of us.

"And gonna come get
your nigger kids,"

just many, many bad calls,
many, many very bad calls.

[Dick] You can feel a town.

You can sense a town,
sense the police.

And there's a stillness
in a town

before something's gonna happen.

I felt that someone...

was gonna be killed.

poignant music

I decided to go the long way
to Chicago

to stop by and see
the wife and the kids,

only to explain to her
that if anything happened to me,

if I got killed,

that she would never raise
those kids with hate.

I would feel I had died in vain
if my kids turned out hating.

Always had a lot of trouble
with Lill

because I was on the road
when they were born.

Dick Junior was laying
in the bed, crying,

so I tipped him in the room,
and I picked him up,

and he stopped crying,
and he'd smile.

Lill walked out.
She was so happy because

I was playing with my son,

kiss my daughter Michele,

kiss my daughter Lynne,

said Daddy's gonna try to make
it a better world for you.

[Lillian] He really had
a feeling that something

was gonna happen.

He really didn't know what,

but he just really had
a bad feeling.

[Dick] Medgar Evers
woke me up that morning

with a phone call.

Asked Medgar what had happened.
He said he didn't know.

He tried to make me call home,
and I said,

"Medgar, what happened?"

A man as brave as Medgar...

couldn't tell me.

Because when he said,
"Your son is dead,"

he almost said it like
he had killed him himself.

This can't be true.

I just held him...

only a few hours ago.

So I called home.
Lill picked up the phone,

and she was screaming.

She said,
"Greg, Richard's dead."

I said, "Honey, I'll be there.

I love you very much."

Never will forget that Medgar
cried when he told me.

He was sorry I was leaving,
but he understood,

got out of town, not knowing
that that would be

the last time I would ever see
Medgar Evers alive.

I knew my husband
was gonna be killed.

We knew it.

He pulled into the driveway.

And I remember our children
saying,

"Daddy's home, Daddy's home."

And in the process of getting up
to go to the door,

a shot was heard.

And I think of all the blood
on my car

as he tried, struggled
to get in

and fell at the steps
with the door key in his hand.

That nightmare...

never leaves.

[siren wailing in distance]

The only reason

Dick Gregory
was not with Medgar Evers

on the night Medgar Evers
was shot and killed,

is because his child had died
in his sleep

at three months old.

I don't think anything
less than that

you could have pried
Dick Gregory

away from Medgar Evers.

[Dick] Funny about a great man,
when he dies,

if the whole world
didn't know him,

the whole world learns, and they
can decide for themselves.

They had decided that

we had lost a great man
in this country.

It's a strange world.

To quit demonstrating,

we want complete desegregation
of all public facilities

and all the charges dropped.

Now we're not gonna stop
for nothing short of this.

[applause]

Police dogs is not enough
no more.

If they don't give us
this demand here,

they better go out and try
to put smoke in the barrel

in the contract.

[laughter and applause]

We went to southern Atlanta.

People all over the world
should understand

the American negro
will not be told any longer

that it's gonna take time
to solve this problem.

There's no more time.
We don't want a man to tell us

that we're gonna get it,
that we have to understand.

When you're out demonstrating
in the street,

the social revolution is on,
and it's gonna stay on

until the negro receives
full rights.

We don't want these rights
tomorrow.

We don't want 'em next week.
We don't want 'em tonight.

We want what we are demanding
right this minute.

He is without doubt
the most talked about

and written about comedian
in show business,

not necessarily on
the amusement pages these days

but right on the front page.

Uh, I think he has
some provocative

and interesting things
to say to all of us tonight.

I'm sure he has. So would you
all welcome Dick Gregory?

[applause,
band playing jazz music]

The government realized when
negroes are integrating things

in America today,
in about six more months,

they're gonna be forced to hire
negro bus drivers in Mississippi

so we're growing steering wheels

so they can drive
from the back of the bus.

[laughter]

[applause]

I received a letter one day
informing me

that I had made
Who's Who in America.

This is why I'm willing
to lay down my life, die,

'cause no place else
but America

could a man born and raised
on relief

from 1932 to 1952,
through 11 years later,

I made Who's Who in America.

Yeah.
This is worth fighting for.

Trying to save this country.

You see, bread in your stomach
means nothing

when you're walking around
with a full belly

but your soul has been robbed
of dignity.

All right. Now I'd rather die
trying to be free

than be a full slave.

[audience murmurs]

[indistinct conversations]

[applause continues]

[Healy] Whenever Dr. King
called, Dick was there.

He was kind of his front man.

If Dr. King wanted him to go
and bother Bull Connor,

he would send him in a week
before Dr. King arrived.

That's how he did it.

And Dick would go down there
and speak maybe at a college

or a community event
or it's in the Black community

or at a Black church,

but he'd go down there
and aggravate and stir it up

so when we arrive,
we can make something happen.

There'll be somebody listening,
there'll be somebody talking.

[Bell] As a comic,
I can look at Dick Gregory

and tell that he was killing
in that moment,

'cause he has that look
that comics get

when they've just gotten
a big laugh

and said, "Yeah, I did that."
[laughs]

And I don't know that
I've ever seen a picture

of Martin Luther King Jr.
where he looked that relaxed,

and he looks like,
"Dick, you take it from here.

I'm-a sit here
and just enjoy it."

[Lillian]
Dick, being a comedian,

he was always telling Martin
a funny joke or something,

and then Martin would just roar
with laughter.

I mean, he just loved
to talk to Dick,

you know, 'cause he would--
you know, Dick had

something to say
about everything.

[Christian]
My father and Dr. King

became good friends,
confidantes.

They realized that their time
on this earth

would probably be cut short.

[Connor] You can never
whip these birds

if you don't keep
you and them separate.

I found that out in Birmingham.

You've got to keep the white
and the Black separate.

dramatic music

[Dick] I'm standing there
at the door

with my hands around the bars,

and I'm thinking about Lill,
I'm thinking about home.

[indistinct shouting]

And Bull Connor, them,
they come in with baseball bats.

[crowd shouting and screaming]

They beat me so bad
with the baseball bats

and had done a larger area,

that probably
would have killed me.

[indistinct shouting,
water rushing]

My... my arms swolled up
so it tore my suit right off.

I didn't wanna complain
because I didn't know

if they would take me someplace

where they would
amputate my arm.

Five guards came by.
That's when they opened the door

and started to come inside,
and that's when I walked out

rather than have the kids here,

and this is when the beating
took place.

Birmingham woke
a lot of people up.

Birmingham woke us up
to this cancer

it is not too late to cure.

And if America wants to be
a doctor,

we have to be the doctor
to cure this.

I would like to introduce
very briefly

a comedian fresh from the jail,
Mr. Dick Gregory.

[cheers and applause]

[applause subsides]

I'd like to say
thank you very much,

and it's a pleasure being here

- and nice being out of jail.
- [laughter]

And I'm very confused this year
because I never thought

I'd see the day I would give out

more fingerprints
than autographs.

[laughter]

[Bellamy] People have no idea.

You know, he would not
compromise his integrity,

making $5,000-plus a night

and gave that up to go down

with Medgar Evers
and Dr. King.

His economic situation
totally, totally

went down the toilet.

What about the, uh, contracts

that you have to perform
elsewhere?

What are you doing about those?

Well, the only ones that I have
to worry about now

are the ones as of today,
'cause when I'm in jail,

those contracts are
automatically forfeited.

It'll just be a matter
of calling my manager

and just canceling everything
out straight across the board

until... until I get out of here.

[Madison]
Dick used all his credit.

He would come back from
a protest or a demonstration,

and the mortgage payment
was due,

and they didn't know how
they were gonna pay it.

[Belafonte] Well, not many
people in entertainment

that, uh, rocked the boat.

They were all very intimidated
with the fact

that whether
they made commentary,

the establishment
would fall down on them,

so for a long time,
Black humorists remained mute

until Richard.

[Williams] He really was
out of money and, you know,

because he was giving it all
the civil rights movement,

and some of his children
needed money,

uh, to go to school,
because some of them

were in private schools.

He was given a check
by a gentleman

by the name of Bertram Lee
to pay for this tuition

for his children,
but then he saw Hosea Williams

down in Atlanta
and found that Hosea

had been beaten up very badly,
bloodied,

and he needed money
because he said,

"We're going back in two weeks."

And he just signed over
the check

that he had just gotten
for his children's education

because he said what Hosea
was doing

was more important
than his children's education,

and he usually chose
whatever it was

that was gonna help
the greatest number of people.

[Dick] It was me seeing
ordinary people,

people that would never
get their name mentioned,

people that no one would
ever say thanks to.

And that's what that movement
was about.

Lot of Black folks died,
lot of decent white folks died,

setting people free.

And in the eyes of God,

those people would be honored
one day.

And that's what the movement
meant.

Let us die. Not kill.

Let us die to set people free.

[protestors chanting]

[chanting continues]

Oh, I'm sure today
for the first time,

people all over the world
know where I am.

[protestors shouting]

[Dick] And I hope that you'll be
aware there are two jails.

[woman] That's right, Dick!
[continues indistinctly]

One that the establishment
sends you to

that you can break out of,

and one that the establishment
puts you in

that you can never break out of.

[Williams] He was arrested
over 100 times,

and he kept going back

because he was able to use
his celebrity

to make a difference.

You put enough pressure...

[woman] That's right!

[Dick] ...on this foul, corrupt,
insane system.

[woman] Yes! We've got to do it.

[Dick] See to it that can give
America her status back.

[horn blaring]

[man] What started the riot?
What was the incident?

[Dick] Well, the incident

that started the riot
was an automobile incident.

There as an argument.
There was a scuffle.

By then a crowd

of several hundred negroes
had gathered,

and the story
of police brutality

quickly spread
through the community.

[Dick] Every incident that had
been tipped off in this country

in the last two years

had been tipped off
by a uniformed police.

I'm not saying the police
is right or wrong.

I'm saying when you have
these incidents

that's tipped off
with this one symbol,

then we should look into it
and see what it is.

These negroes
aren't throwing bricks

just for the sake
of throwing bricks.

[indistinct shouting]

Police brutality
is not when a cop

necessarily knocks me
upside the head.

It's when a cop calls me nigger
when he's making the arrest.

This is a form
of police brutality.

As you know, I just got back
from Los Angeles, Vietnam.

[laughter]

[man] That was quite a morning.

We all picked up our papers
here in New York.

A lot of people didn't read
beyond that headline.

All it said
here in New York was,

"Dick Gregory shot
in race riot."

[Christian]
A bullet to his leg,

trying to
step in between forces,

trying to find a peaceful
solution to what was happening.

[Dick] I would never go
to my baby's crib

when my baby was crying
and say, "Quit crying."

First, I would find out
why she was crying,

uh, because kids do not cry
for no reason at all.

It's the same thing about what's
happening in America today.

Those people have such

legitimate gripes
and frustrations

built in them for so long.

Nobody ever talked
about Watts,

and it's gonna be
a whole lots of Watts

all over this country,
up north,

if we don't go in
and start solving

not only the problem
of the negro

but the problem
of the poor white man.

You have white people
that live in the ghetto,

that they're gonna be next,

unless we sit down
and solve this problem

which is not
a Los Angeles problem,

which is not
a Mississippi problem.

It's an American problem.

[indistinct shouting]

[man, amplified voice]
This area is being closed.

Please go in your homes.

[woman, chanting]
You can't stop the revolution!

[male reporter]
In Newark alone,

thirty persons were killed
in four days of rioting.

Hands up! Don't shoot!

- Hands up--
- [gunshot]

[indistinct shouting]

[female dispatcher] All units,
looters at 62 and Broadway.

[Dick] People,
whether you like it or not,

are controlled by nature.

If you put a tight shoe
on your foot, you get a corn.

If you wear the shoe
long enough,

it turns into a callus.

If you wear the shoe
long enough,

it turns into a bunion,

and eventually,
it'll wear the shoe out.

Black folks in America
got a callus around their souls.

And if the system
don't back up their shoe,

it's gonna be wore out.

[indistinct shouting]

There used to be many
who doubted the motives

of Dick Gregory.

He's been a leading figure
in the civil rights movement,

and yet he is billed as a comic.

Uh, there were charges
of publicity, money, career.

Recently, he was shot
in a race riot in Los Angeles.

He and his family
have been jailed

both in the North and South.

He won his fame as a comedian,

and yet his fellow negro comics
say his dedication

has blunted his humor,

that he's lost his sense
of satire,

that he's now more angry
than funny

Judge for yourself,
'cause we believe him to be

a funny, funny, courageous man.

Here is Dick Gregory. Yeah.

[band playing uptempo jazz,
applause]

[applause continues]

[cheers and applause]

[applause subsides]

[laughter]

And nobody's not that funny,
but you're about to convince me.

[applause]

We give so much
to celebrities.

We want 'em to be perfect.

As long as all the negativity
you're doing is glamorous,

you could be a drunkard,

you could be hooked to dope,

we can still admire you

Come out here and get to saying

that we can't treat women
a certain way or...

Catholics a certain way
or Jews a certain way

or Blacks a certain way,
Chicanos a certain way

then you can lose
your celebrity status.

You get dirty.

There are certain people
in society

who love you
but can't touch you.

If I was young enough
to get drafted,

I would wait till I got
my induction notice,

then, uh, show up
in the draft board,

and they give you that little
questionnaire to fill out,

and when it got
to that little section

that said "Occupation,"
I would just write "murderer."

[laughter]

That sounds funny, but you know,
we got such dumb laws

in this country, we would never
be permitted by law

to draft a murderer into
the army to send him to Vietnam

to kill Viet Cong?

[laughter]

It was one thing to talk about
moving into your neighborhood.

That was... That was something
that he said on the Paar show.

But it was another thing to talk
about the war of Vietnam.

The Federal Bureau
of Investigation

is waging and will continue
to wage a relentless warfare

against crime and criminals.

Further advances
against the insidious activities

of underworld characters

and their vicious,
conspiring parasites

must yet be made.

Hoover had written, "Watch this
negro comedian Dick Gregory."

Only a fool today would sit back
and blame Hitler's army

and not blame Hitler.

That's why the whole world
is looking at us

very critical now.

Because anytime we can go
to Vietnam

and do the same thing there
Hitler was doing,

the world will know it will not
be too much longer

before they do it to us.

[Greg] The head of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation

signed a letter asking for
the FBI to do an investigation

of Dick Gregory.

[Dick] This secret, secret
police was out to discredit you,

not to help you
but to discredit you.

It said, "Chicago, as office
on Richard Claxton Gregory,

also known as Dick Gregory,

Chicago should develop

counterintelligence measures
to neutralize him.

This should not be done
in the nature of an exposé,

since he already gets
far too much publicity.

Instead, sophisticated,
completely untraceable means

of neutralizing Dick Gregory
should be developed."

I had every government agency
in America's tapping my phone,

the CIA, the FBI, bunch of cats
we ain't never heard of.

[laughter]

Once in a while,
there would be phone calls,

and a telephone call
from Greg

would usually be
at three o'clock in the morning.

And it would be a whisper.

And he would always say...

uh, "Talk clearly so the FBI

can understand
what you're saying." [laughs]

[Dick] You know, I mean,
I ain't into nothing.

[laughter]

And I mean,

they know I know
they're tapping the phone.

[laughter]

The people booking entertainers,
especially comedians, said,

"We don't wanna talk
about the war in Vietnam.

We don't wanna talk about
civil rights movement."

And he realized he was talking
to the wrong people.

1960s rock music

He was getting a lot of calls
from universities and colleges

all over the country
who wanted to hear him talk.

These are educated young people

who were really interested
in changing the world.

And it dawned on him that
this was the greatest audience

he could have.

[Dick] You know how it felt

with the civil rights
legislation is?

White folks in America
gonna get their rights

under the United States
Constitution,

and Black folks got to get
our rights

under civil rights legislation.

I don't want my rights
on no damn installment plan.

He was like the most popular,

most in-demand guest lecturer
you could find.

You got three hours
of information,

and it was from one of
the funniest guys in the planet.

I got on the plane yesterday
morning flying in here,

and I'm on my way to my seat,

and this old white cat
sitting there,

looked at me and say, "Uh, uh,
can I talk to you, my brother?"

[laughter and applause]

Your what?

Things have got so bad,
I'm your brother now.

He had
this vast college audience.

You see,
the word "white liberals"

is an unconscious racist
statement

because nobody's ever admitted
that we got Black liberals,

which is far more worse
than white liberals, definitely.

[laughter]

[applause]

The reason I spend about 90%
of my time

on college campuses today
because I sincerely feel

that the young people
in this country today

are the most honest, ethical,
dedicated, committed

group of young people that's
ever lived in this country.

You young folks have come
to the nation's Capitol today

to do away with
the military industrial complex.

We're gonna see to it

there will be no more war!

[cheering]

The promises
of the great society

have been shot down
on the battlefield of Vietnam.

The war on Vietnam
was the demarcation point

for him, for Dr. King,
for a lot of people.

That was the point where they
had to give up everything.

[Dick] But being an agitator,

I realize that you get
dirt on you.

But looking at my children
wash their hands,

I can tell the intensity
of their playing

according to how dirty
the soap is.

Dirty soap don't bother me
'cause I can wash it clean.

But looking at that, I realized
that I'm America's soap,

and all the dirt you see on me
come off of America.

For those who say to me,
"Stick to civil rights,"

I have another answer.

Injustice anywhere

is a threat
to justice everywhere.

Dr. King was standing
on the balcony

of a second floor hotel room
tonight,

when according to a companion,
a shot was fired

from across the street.

somber music

[Lillian]
And they killed Dr. King.

There was no turning around.

Dick was just despondent,
crushed,

and just terrible, terrible.

[Dick] You have to realize
that we are living

in a country that's so prone
to killing that they...

that a man of peace
and kindness and of love

like Dr. Martin Luther King
can die a violent death,

hated by Americans

while our generals of the army
is loved in big parades

and standing ovation.

That's the mess you youngsters
is fixing to inherit.

When you asked me to be
nonviolent in Mississippi...

...or go to Vietnam and be
so violent, I can be a hero,

to someone that's never
smacked my mother,

to someone that's never
insulted my children.

You know, America,

you're gonna have
to stop expecting

Black folks to be better
than them.

I didn't know what I could do
to protest strongly

the war in Vietnam,

and I thought that if I did
a 40-day fast,

it come dramatize the issue

better than any other way
I knew.

funk rock music

[male reporter]
The White House announced

that another 50,000 troops
would be sent to Vietnam,

bringing the total
to nearly half a million.

That call probably broke
into a weeklong series

of increasingly
bloody demonstrations.

The draft week continued
today...

1968 really was a unique year.

Some historians have said
it was like a second civil war.

The fight for freedom
and to end all communism.

And these punks here
walking around,

that's what you call anarchy
and treason.

For the first time
in American history,

there was a very serious
anti-war movement.

I'm just sad you young folks
don't tie up and paralyze

every city in America,
because there should be

no order of business
in this country anymore

but the business
that's at hand.

Yes, I'm determined to set
an example as an individual,

American, lawfully protesting

against my government's
involvement

in the war on Vietnam,
and we're probably

the only country in the world,
uh, that's overfed,

and I think the fact of...
of someone in our society

as we know it
withdrawing from food

from Thanksgiving to Christmas,

I think this will have
a tremendous effect.

I don't know anything that I
ever did in the whole movement

that got as much press reaction
as that 40-day fast.

[applause]

[applause subsides]

[laughter]

You know, this is my...
my 14th month

of not eating any solid food in
protest of the war in Vietnam,

and the reason I mention that to
you now is because I'm hungry.

[laughter]

What do you have now
in the course of a day?

Uh, fruit juice and water.
I travel with a juicing machine,

not to be mixed up
with a blender.

This is where you put it in,
and it extracts the juice.

Sends the juice one way
and the pulp go another.

You really feel well?
Still feel well?

I really... I really feel good,
yeah.

I go through little periods
of... of... of hunger.

Do you dream of
cheesecake or anything--

Man, I dream of dog food.

[laughter]

- [applause]
- Cheesecake.

Eight ounces of water,
eight glasses a day.

You're starving yourself. Why?

And he said, "Because what'll
happen is people will ask you,

'Why aren't you eating?'
And then once they ask you,

you now get to explain to them
what the issue is about."

The United States Constitution
talks about justice,

and I think that
we're being shortchanged

because everybody's worried
about communism.

If America could become
as frightened

of things like injustices
as she is of communism,

and wipe it out
with all of the vigor

she's trying to
wipe out communism,

this would be a groovy country,

and that in itself would be
the greatest goal

in the history of communism.

You don't use the fast
to change the minds

or hearts of tyrants or to make
bad people good people,

but to create a positive force

where other positive forces
can join,

and eventually things
will change.

When he first said that,
you know,

he was going on a long fast,

I really thought he was
out of his mind

just to go that long, uh,
without eating.

And then when I would see him,
I would see how he was,

you know, losing weight.

[Dick] I weighed 288 pounds
when it started,

98 pounds when it finished.

- How's everybody?
- [man] How are you?

Do we need to test,
check for levels, everybody?

Testing one, two, three, four.

[man] Do you think this gesture
is futile?

Do you think it will really
bring about what you want?

I think if enough pressure
comes down,

uh, in the money areas,

I think it will have
a profound effect.

I didn't expect a tremendous
amount of college kids

to go on and fast.

Uh, matter of fact,
I've had to intercede

and get' em come off
because they wanted to go

for long, long periods.

Uh, word of mouth
had really carried it.

It's really surprising.

[man] You think this will have
a lasting effect on your health?

- On my health?
- Yeah.

I don't know.
I don't have any... no idea.

[man] Are you under
a doctor's care at all?

No.

Brother Dick also did
a tremendous amount of harm

to his body, not being
reckless and irresponsible,

but really prepared to die
for the movement,

and he just didn't know
how belated that fatal aspect

of what he was doing
was going to be.

[Dick] The minute you say
go on a fast,

they wanna know,
"Did you check with a doctor?"

See, people don't check with
a doctor when they snort coke.

People don't check with a doctor
when they smoke reefers.

People don't check with a doctor
when they smoke cigarettes.

As long as I was smoking
four packs of cigarettes a day

or drinking a fifth of Scotch
every day,

nobody worried about how I felt.

A lady named Dr. Fulton--
she basically taught me

what to look out for
and how much water to drink.

My success in fasting would be
thanks to Dr. Fulton.

The greatest nutritionist
in the history of the planet.

She had that special magic
of putting herbs together,

plus the prayer piece.

I have not run across anybody
like her yet.

[Bellamy] Dr. Fulton had
a health food store in Chicago.

She explained to him
that you need to do something

that's going to leave a legacy,

and it's important that you get
your health together.

[Dick] And we just talked and
talked and talked and talked,

and the next thing I know,
my whole life changed.

To smoke four to five packs
of cigarettes a day,

I started smoking when I was
13 years old,

and I smoked all the way up
to six months ago,

and I'll tell you why I quit.

[applause]

I did my homework,
and I looked up,

and I found out every time
I bought a pack of cigarettes,

I gave the government
eight cents tax,

and at the end of the year,
the cigarette industry

gave the government
$2 billion more,

and at that point, I decided
I will not catch cancer

and buy napalm and mace
at the same time.

[applause]

I really never understood hunger
until I went on a fast.

When I look at television,
I see a dog food commercial.

And I wanted some, and then
after I came off the fast,

I started checking,

and in St. Louis, Missouri,
they sell more dog food

in the stores
next to the projects

where the people are not
permitted to have dogs.

And for the first time,
I was aware

that how many people
was eating dog food.

And so consequently, when you
start looking at these things,

and then for the first time,
I started realizing,

you know, what crime
in the street is all about.

[Christian] My father
was profoundly impacted

by the nonviolence
of the civil rights movement.

That's what led to him
being a vegetarian

and then ultimately a vegan.

He figured, "If I am not
gonna harm another man,

I'm gonna give that same respect
to other living things."

The number one force

on this here thing
called planet Earth is us,

human, real, and one of
the things we need to survive

is what they call whole food.

We sort of take diet culture
as, like, that's just something

that we all do or we...
or, you know,

now I'm gonna eat vegetarian
or vegan.

But none
of that's happening then.

He was way ahead of his time
in that,

as far as, like, thinking about
what you put into your body

and how it helps you long-term.

poignant music

[Dick] I had
to get out of Chicago.

Be where the air was pure

and, uh, where you had
some room to move around in.

Close to nature.

So Lill got out the hospital
with baby number 10,

and we packed up everything,
and I wanted to find a place

where the children could have
fresh air and clean water.

My first reaction, I looked out
and saw this water.

I said, oh, God, the... all
my children are gonna drown.

[laughs]

It seemed like that road was,
like, 20 miles long,

and I said, wait a minute.
You mean the kids

that are school age, they gotta
go up and down that road?

It just seemed like we were
in the middle of nowhere.

I probably was in tears
every day.

Take a family of 10 Black kids
from, you know, Chicago,

and move them
to Plymouth, Massachusetts,

and I joke with people often
that when we moved in '73,

we integrated the town.

First day of school,
you know, the teacher...

"Uh, Gregory Greg?" One name,
and, you know, all...

all eyes on me.

We hated it at first,
but as we grew older,

man, what a... what a blessing
it was, you know?

After a while, just suddenly,
I fell in love with it.

[Dick] There's something
about nature.

There's something about outside.

It changed my whole life.

It gave me a new energy.

One of my small daughters,
I said, "Hey, come here."

And she walked up.
She said, "What do you want?"

I said, "Give me some sugar."
And she looked at me.

She said, "What's that?"

- [laughter]
- Oh, wow.

We never had sugar
in the house.

That's great.

[Christian] We had this
extreme diet of veganism

where not only was it
no animal products,

it was, you know,
no white flour, no white sugar,

no fried foods.

Couldn't eat what we wanted,
stuff, you know,

folks were hiding things
in different places,

and all I knew is that
when Dad came home,

a lot of stuff got shut down.

I remember one day,
they got a pizza that

they weren't supposed to have.

He got a chain and put it
around the refrigerator

and says, "When you get
the food that is supposed

to be in this refrigerator,
I'll take the lock off."

And that lasted three days.

[Frost] There's all the talk
of divorce today and of...

of love that doesn't last
and so on.

Does it seem like
a foreign land to you?

No, I feel... I feel strange
talking about it

'cause I'm not home
most of the time.

[Lillian] He was always gone.
He was gone out of the country.

One of the kids said,
"Oh. Like, you're a stranger."

[laughs] And he didn't
take that very well.

By his admission,
he was probably gone

from the homestead
90% of the time.

I think to a great extent,
Dick Gregory

struggled with the effort
to mix his family

and his responsibility
as a citizen

and to the civil rights
movement.

I think he didn't know how
to do it sometimes.

Lill imbued in the kids
an understanding

that their father
was really being

a father to the world also.

[Lillian] It was a family
where you knew

you were doing something good.

You were doing something
for the cause,

and even though he was gone
more than not,

he had enough faith in me
to know that I could take care

of everything at home.

[Christian] The farm that
us Gregorys grew up on

in Plymouth, Massachusetts,
was called Tower Hill Farm.

Tower Hill Farm was a lot of
things for the Gregory family.

But for my father,
it was his workshop.

It was where he formulated
his 4X Formula.

The 4X Formula was
a combination of vitamins

and nutrients,
ground into a powder

that you would scoop and mix
with water or juice.

We would go to whatever health
food store was in the city.

He spent about $2,000, $3,000
on vitamins,

and he would make
individual packs,

and he would be up
all night long in the kitchen,

just making pill packs.

It was a secret concoction
of ingredients

that Dick Gregory
had put together,

and any individual that
he found had a health issue,

he would literally put
his formula together

and send it to him for free.

Greg played a...
a very important role,

as told by Yoko Ono
in finding a formula

to get both she
and John Lennon off of drugs.

[Christian]
My dad and Michael Jackson

flew over to Ethiopia
during the famine

and were able to save
hundreds of infants

by bringing that product over
and paying the money theirselves

to distribute it.

He influenced individuals,
not just in the United States,

but globally,

people start drinking water

because of Dick Gregory,
because when he said to them,

that no matter what
your disease,

no matter what your ailment,

no matter what
your health challenge may be,

if you just increase
your water intake,

you will find yourself
improving.

That made sense to people.

And so around the world,
millions of us

started consuming
large amounts of water

for the first time in our lives.

We're talking about people
starving right now.

We're talking about a world

where there's
a half a billion people

that could be dead
from starvation

in the next six months,
and I'm just insulted

living in a nation that can send
tanks around the world

but can't send turnips,

that can supply the whole world
with napalm,

but not fertilizer.

rhythmic drum music

I ran from Chicago
to Washington, D.C.,

drinking nothing
but orange juice, fruit juice,

and taking this solution,

which the base of it being kelp,
k-e-l-p, which is seaweed,

which is 70 million tons
laying off the Indian Ocean.

One heaping tablespoon full
were to keep you alive.

We can produce this now
at five cents a day per person.

[indistinct conversations]

We're not gonna tolerate
living in a world

where millions of people
gon' die for lack of food.

This is what it's all about.

When he was running
across the country,

he was telling the press
and telling anyone

that would listen
that this country

is going to experience
a serious epidemic

in obesity, diabetes,
high blood pressure,

and all kinds of illnesses.

The newest stunt was gonna be
a cross-country run.

[Dick] We're gonna run
from New York City

all away cross
to Los Angeles, California,

to dramatize
that there's a need

for all the major governments
to deal

with the hungry people
in the world

and that this food do work.

[Christian] He got wind
that a schoolteacher

by the name of Gordon Brooks

had already mapped out a route

and was planning
to do the same thing.

He called me up and said,
"Hey, brother, how you doing?

I want you to coordinate my run
from L.A. to New York,"

and I went, "Okay."

Yeah, I got to spend, like,
four or five months with him,

and he kept me cracked up
all the time.

[laughs]

Sometimes, we'd have to hop
in the van

and get to a media event,

because he was trying
to raise awareness.

John Doe citizens should not
have to go around

running across countries
to feed hungry people.

He was always trying to test
the public, test the media.

Nobody believed he could do it.

And he did it, basically,
on a total fast.

That was the scary part.

[Dick]
We're averaging 50 miles a day,

which is the equivalent
of two marathons a day.

Pain going through my body
that it's hard to believe

that the human body could take.

[Brooks] The pain that
Dick Gregory was going through

was beyond comprehension.

They don't call it
Hells Canyon for anything.

It was hell.

[Bellamy] The blisters that
he would get on his feet,

the tiredness, how tired he was,

but he would say,
"I gotta do it."

We'd wake up
the next morning. He'd say,

"Let's go to work."

He gets to New Mexico, roughly,

calls me and said, "Jack...

we're not getting
the press we need."

"You have to go out and see
Muhammad Ali tonight."

Said, "Mr. Ali, we need you
in our run across the country."

Ali said, "You know
I'm the greatest fighter

in the world. I'm gonna destroy
Jimmy Young tonight?"

Uh, yes, sir. Yes, sir.

"I'm gonna pee blood for
two weeks, pay for this myself,

and you want me to go out there,
run in that damn desert?"

Yes, sir, I do.

"Okay!"

[crowd shouting]

Here he is, the heavyweight
champion, leaving no doubt.

I must say that Dick Gregory's
a great man.

He's running
from coast to coast,

putting an emphasis
on the food problem.

He's now about 20 miles
out of Wichita, Kansas,

on Highway 54.
I wanna say hello to him.

funk music

It was for the nation.
It was because Dick called him,

just like Dr. King called Dick.

They felt something
inside of themselves

that was important
to the nation,

important to the world.

[Ayanna] Running initially
was a way out.

Later in life,
running, just like fasting,

was a way of protesting.

He ran for
activism against apartheid.

He ran for Native Americans.
He ran for women.

His time
in the civil rights movement,

he learned that there is
no more humane thing

than to take care
of your health and well-being,

and that led
to the natural transition

of him becoming an advocate of
healthy living and clean living.

He decided at that time
that health and wellness

was right up there
with activism.

Somewhere way, way, way down
was entertainment.

[Dick] I saw a conflict
in saying to young folks

that drugs and alcohol is bad
than coming to a nightclub

and catching my act, and--

[Cathy] Where people
were smoking and drinking.

[Dick] Yeah.

[man] And then all of a sudden,
he called me and said,

I'm not gonna do any more dates
at nightclubs.

As many of you no doubt know,

this is a very special
and historic night

in the history of show business

and in the almost legendary life
of Dick Gregory.

His final nightclub performance.

No man has given more,
asked less,

or been more needed.

As you go on to other service,

we thank you
and dedicate ourselves

to returning your gifts in kind
to your chosen beneficiary.

Mankind.

[applause]

[Dick] Why am I giving it up?
Well, I'll tell you why.

I will be 41 years old
this coming October,

and thanks to
the civil rights movement,

thanks to the peace movement
and all the beautiful people

I was able to meet
because of my involvement

on a worldwide level,
at 41-years-old-to-be,

I know now that there is
a universal force

that controls the whole thing.

You call it anything
you wanna call it.

One day it's gonna balance out
all of our ledgers,

and it's gonna be
a simple question.

Not "How much money
did you make? Were you funny?

Did they like you?
Were you a celebrity?

Who was your mother?
Who was your father?

Where did you live?
What school did you go to?

Where'd you send your kids
to school?"

Well, here's one simple question

that all of us are going to
have to deal with.

How much service did you give
to your fellow human beings?

Just that simple
and just that sweet.

[woman] Yes.

[applause]

You may remember Dick Gregory

as the hip, acid-tongued
nightclub comedian

of the '60s whose
outspoken political views

so rankled the FBI
that an internal memo

called him demented,
or you might remember him as

the civil rights activist
or the man who fasted

for nearly two years
to protest the Vietnam War,

or the man
who has devoted himself

to stamping out world hunger.

At 57, his life has been
more chaotic than calm,

but he says that's what happens

when you walk the path
he's chosen.

[Dick] The number one problem
that we're confronted

with today is diet,
uh, the poisons,

the additives
that's in the food,

the vitamins it destroys
when it's cooked or it's frozen.

My goals is to... to really help
change the priorities

in this country, that I could
change the whole food industry.

Because I think
that this nation,

will never be a great nation,
will never be a strong nation.

Great nation is not a gun
or a bomb or an Air Force.

This great nation is a nation
that has the healthiest people

mentally and physically.

Oh, we've been eating bad shit
for hundreds of years.

You know, there's no whole foods
in the hood.

There's very few choices,

and the fact
that he took nutrition,

it's one
of the most basic things

to improve the quality
of someone's life.

I told him. I said,
"Greg, you have come down

from almost 300 pounds.

You need to find a way
to convert the 4X Formula

into a diet
and take it to the market."

He said, "I don't...
I don't know how to do that."

[man] Dick Gregory
for the Bahamian Diet.

The problem is
you're overweight.

Whether it's 10 pounds
or 150 pounds,

hey, I've been there,
and the solution is simple.

The Bahamian Diet.

You can do it. I know.

I've been there,
and it ain't pretty.

We were able to find someone
that assisted him

with the finalizing formula
for 4X, Dr. David Allen.

And Dr. Allen took the product
and started marketing it

to multi-level marketing.

When the Bahamian Diet
came to market in 1984,

we did about $113 million
in sales

in a two-year period of time.

He was concerned about nutrition
for poor people

and Black people in particular.

It's like we were poisoning
ourselves.

[Sykes]
That was killing us, too.

High blood pressure,
diabetes, all of that.

So I think he was pushing
nutrition another way

to try to help his people.

And it was so popular,
you know?

I mean, everybody was,
"You on that Bahamian Diet?"

You know, whenever you see
somebody lose weight,

"Oh, you on that Dick Gregory."

Hey, now, fix me some
of that Dick Gregory.

At that point, if you're talking
about diet culture

or food culture,

anything that's about
taking better care of yourself

is white people talking
to white people.

So to have a Black man
who's saying,

"We need to take better care
of ourselves,

and we need to do it
for ourselves,"

like, he's not recommending
you go to, like,

a white product and do it.

He's saying,
"We can do this ourselves."

That's the revolutionary idea
in there.

[Dick]
There's a new economic arm

to the civil rights movement.

The Black neighborhood is

the only neighborhood
you can come in in America,

and someone's selling the
product other than that group,

and so we saying that when we
sell to one another

and open up our businesses,
that money changes hands,

and it stays
in the neighborhood

and you see
the whole piece change.

And if they can bring dope
and cigarettes, caffeine,

and nicotine to your doorstep,

then we want to bring health
to your doorstep.

That's the greatest
welfare system I know,

is entrepreneurship.

- How so?
- We businesspeople,

we can go and buy all the booze
we wanna buy for lunch,

and a welfare mother
would have trouble

trying to get free apple juice
for the babies.

It's just so insane.

I started getting
so many phone calls

from people crying out for help.

People said, you know,

"I'm thinking about
committing suicide."

dramatic music

Walter Hudson was a man
in Long Island, New York,

who was over a thousand pounds.

He had actually tripped
and fell

and got wedged in the doorway
between his bedroom

and his bathroom.

It took eight rescue workers
four hours

to get him out of that doorway,

and it made such big news
in Long Island,

that it caught the attention
of Dick Gregory.

[Dick] And we were
on "The Phil Donahue Show."

Eliminate all the sugar,
uh, all the bread.

The most important thing,
he was drinking almost no water.

Uh, he was drinking soda pop.

We've increased his water now
to about 12 glasses a day.

We'll eventually move that up
to 16 glasses a day.

He was under house arrest.
He will eat no cooked food,

no animal product,
no dairy product,

no white refined sugar,

no bread, no butter,
no cheese.

And... and we're gonna do it.

[reporter] But for a man who
hasn't left the house

but once in 27 years,

content until his recent fall
to lie in bed

watching television,
reading the Bible, and eating,

it's an enormous task.

[Dick] You know, there's a lot
of people out there...

- [Hudson] I know.
- ...that love you.

[Hudson] Yes, I know.

[Dick] You wanna say
anything to 'em?

[Hudson] Well, I wanna tell them
that I haven't given up.

I have hope,
and I believe that

I'm gonna do it.

I will lose that weight.

[male reporter]
In just three months,

he lost 300 pounds.

But his biggest lost came
the first time

he tried to leave his house.

[Dick] Next move was to get him
out of that house

and take him to a facility

where we could get him
in the ocean.

[male reporter]
On that day in February,

with the world watching,

Walter refused
to walk outside.

So Dick Gregory walked out
on him.

Energy-wise and nutrition-wise,
he's ready.

The psychological problem,
we can't deal with.

Do you feel you are letting
people down?

No, because I figure that,
you know,

I'm still going on with my diet
so I haven't let them down.

I feel that, you know,
that they'll know that,

and I figure further down
the road,

when they see me more thinner,

they'll know
that I didn't give up.

[Dick] Two years later,
he passed away.

I can't help him.
I didn't know what to do,

and I really felt bad
about it.

[waves lapping]

I decided that
if I could take a group

and could really dramatize them
on the press,

then maybe we could wake
America's conscience up.

This is gonna be
the first breathing exercise.

So move it in.

[Bellamy] We opened up
a facility in the Bahamas

called Dick Gregory's
Health Resort,

and it just began to blossom.
It began to grow.

- I love who?
- Myself!

- I love who?
- Myself!

- I love who?
- Myself!

[Dick] Most doctors
and most hospitals

don't know what to do
with the morbidly obese,

and yet there's 34 million
Americans obese.

There's 100 million
that's overweight.

- 301.
- 301!

[cheers and applause]

Some of the guys
hadn't seen their feet,

you know, standing up.

They hadn't seen collarbones
in their bodies in years,

things that we take for granted.

We were able to effect change
in... in people's lives.

[male reporter] And last year,
he sold the franchise rights

for his Slim Safe Bahamian Diet
for a reported $30 million.

Do you think people would
find it somewhat of a paradox

to... to see a man who is
such an activist,

who has so long been connected
with so many cause,

to be such a wealthy man?

No, well, I think
you'd probably be surprised,

but I've always made money.

[Sykes] When Dick Gregory became
this entrepreneur

with the Bahamian Diet,
I don't remember anyone saying

that he was a sellout or...
or was disappointed with him,

as, "Hey, this is a good idea,"
you know?

At least it was
something positive.

It's not like he was selling,
you know,

Dick Gregory Cigarettes.

[Christian]
My father, as somebody

who came from very little,

had very little attachment
to money.

If he had it,
he was going to use it,

and he was using it to advance
something for the better.

[male reporter]
But we're talking about

millions and millions
of dollars here.

[Dick] No, I don't think so.
I mean, I'm sure.

I'm sure they're shocked
because--not shocked because of,

I don't act the way
you think wealthy people

are supposed to act.

[Yohance]
What his net value was

was never
even remotely important to him.

And so when you don't keep your
eye on that financial needle,

yeah, things can go wrong.

somber music

- Tried your diet.
- I love it.

- Thank you.
- All right. Fine. Okay.

He was a great entertainer
and a very poor businessman.

He did not end up
in a situation

where much of the money
flowed to him at all.

[Christian] It became an inside
fight between Dick Gregory

and his partners.

They felt as though Dick
was spending too much money

in these desires to have
a facility and other things

he wanted to do versus
what they wanted to do,

was just basically move
and distribute product.

Two different sides
of the executive team

sued each other, and it wound up
in federal court.

The facility
in Fort Walton Beach

ultimately closed.

It ended very badly

with over $2 million worth
of his royalties

were tied up in court
that he couldn't access.

Bankruptcy really was
the only option.

[birds calling]

I got a call from him one day,
and he said,

"Doctor, it's gonna be bad.
It's gonna be bad,"

and I said, "What do you mean?

He said,
"Well, I'm at the point now

where I will no longer be able
to pay my life insurance.

I will no longer be able
to protect my family."

[Christian]
It wasn't long after that

before we started
to lose things.

And it was just me and my mother
and my daughter

living there at the time,

and I see these big trucks
outside,

and I'm like, "Mom?"

somber music

[Lillian] Oh, God,
it was a terrible time.

It was just a terrible time,

and it all just sort of
happened in a blur.

[Christian] We lost the farm,
Tower Hill Farm,

it was a fixture
for us Gregorys,

was no more.

I was at Morgan State
at that time,

and I just remember
getting a call that

we had lost the farm

and that everything
got taken offsite.

The lien holder had secured
a company to come

and move everything and move it
into their storage unit.

I never knew for sure,
except I knew every time

I needed to reach him directly,
there wasn't really a phone.

There was no home phone.

I could call Lill or I could
call his son Christian,

but I kinda sensed

that he was living
from place to place.

[Dick] I didn't know that I'd
have a Rolls-Royce repossessed,

that I'd be put out of my house
with worldwide television there,

and I didn't care.

[woman] Did he wish he was
still a millionaire?

I'm sure he did,

but I think what he really
would have missed,

if someone said, "You are not
Dick Gregory anymore.

What you say does not matter,"

that would have broke
his spirit.

There's a whole generation
that grew up listening

to Dick Gregory.

And I don't know that you have
the visibility today

- that you had before.
- No, I don't.

One day, I went
into this huge showroom.

Did my whole act
to an empty auditorium.

I just went in and did
my whole act.

I don't know why I did.

Ooh, it was painful.
I mean, painful 'cause why?

Ain't no laughs.

When you're doing humor
or doing entertainment,

you depend on human beings
to react,

and if you don't get
that reaction,

then your rhythm,
your juice don't flow.

That made me have respect
for hecklers.

You know, I would rather be
in a room full of hecklers,

try to do my act than in a room
with nobody in it.

Next up, we are honored
to have a world-renowned

civil rights activist
and nutritionist

who allowed me to eat
his pre-roast meat,

and I appreciate that.

Please welcome
the very old Dick Gregory.

[cheers and applause]

[Schneider] I met Dick Gregory
at the roast of Hugh Hefner.

After I met him,
I knew he was funny,

and I... I remembered I went
like, "I gotta hire him."

So I asked him if he wanted
to be in one of my movies.

And I said, "It's a...
It's a silly movie."

Movie was called
"The Hot Chick." [laughs]

I wanted Dick to come in there
and have some fun.

He got it instantly.
He just nailed it.

- You got to hold on to it.
- Oh!

Not too tight, but enough
to let it know you the boss.

- [grunting]
- Remember, if you shake it

more than twice,
you're playing with it.

[grunts]

If you know funny,
you don't ever lose it.

You... you always know it.

And then, 'cause like
a month later, I got a call,

and he said,
"Because of that movie I did,

I got health insurance
for Lillian,

and, uh, she broke her arm,
and she, uh,

we got insurance,
paid for the whole thing,

so thank you, my brother."

I didn't know
he didn't have insurance.

[indistinct conversations]

[Christian] We all get older.
We all have a life cycle,

and you know, it doesn't matter
how legendary you may be,

aging's aging.

He called me up, and he said,

"Hey, hey, doc, I've been
walking around this hotel

for 20 minutes
looking for my kitchen,

and it took that long
before it dawned on me

that I wasn't home."

He had early onset
of Alzheimer's.

That was the first time
that I started to see

the anger kind of rise up.

What you say? See, you keep
looking for shit.

But I'm not understanding
what the difference

of your search and my search.

You ain't supposed to
understand. It's money.

Fucking money.

I was a former assistant

and manager of Dick Gregory.

[laughs] Man, Mr. Gregory
cursed me out so many times,

and I got fired so many times,

and then rehired
in the same sentence.

You know, he cursed out
everybody.

I seen him curse out Kevin Hart.

[Hart] Nick Cannon
was in the hospital.

Dick Gregory was there
when I showed up to visit,

and he started cussing me out.

"You better put your money in
the Black financial institution,

you stupid motherfucker."
[laughs]

He... He would cuss at you,
and it was aggressive,

but you still had to understand
that he meant well.

You try to speak out of turn
when Mr. Gregory's talking,

you don't care who you are
or what's going on.

He gon' let you have it.

On one hand, he's one of the
greatest comedians to ever live.

On the other hand,
can't stop talking.

He had a little briefcase
with him.

He broke that out, and he had

you know,
clippings of news articles.

So it went from,
"Here comes Dick Gregory,"

to "Oh, shit!
Here comes Dick Gregory."

And he gon' tell you
that you don't know nothing

and that you need to sit down
and listen.

"You're a stupid motherfucker."
Like... and it was...

it was like, okay,
"Well, hold on now, Dick."

"You know, the Russians own
Mountain Dew,

and they're putting uranium
in..." You know, so okay.

First of all, ain't nobody
ever telling me this.

Second of all, let me...
let me receive the information.

"You know, Hasbro has a chip
inside your brain

that you think is a toy that
monitors your..." Huh? What?

Possibly, if you lowered
the tone and aggression,

and aggression...

"You know, the government counts
every time you say 'nigga.'"

Huh? What? Okay.

And even though it came out
aggressive,

at the end of it, he was like,
"I'm talking to you

the way I talk to you because
I want you to be somebody

that does the right thing
so other people can follow."

He just spoke his truth.
Like, that's his truth.

You know, he don't care if you
don't like it or not.

He don't care
if you don't respect it or not.

This is his truth.

You look on the internet now,
and you just see countless clips

of just a fire-breathing,
angry man.

We'd tell Pop, "You know,
maybe you should rest yourself

for a little bit."

Resting for him was... I said,
"Well, if you're gonna give

the same level of energy,

we might as well have you
up on the stage."

So as he got back into comedy,
he made a very clear decision

that he was going to, you know,
be R-A-W.

He was gonna be as raw
as he wanted to be.

uptempo jazz drum music

[DJ Envy] We got
a special guest with us

in the building this morning.

[Charlamagne tha God]
A very, very special guest.

It's a privilege and honor

to have this man in the building
this morning.

- Mr. Dick Gregory.
- Mr. Dick Gregory.

- I've got 10 children, man.
- Damn.

- That's... Damn?
- I'm happy for you. I'm proud.

Happy now?

I want my sperm to catch up
to yours.

Oh, man, I'd just get me
some booty.

[laughter]

Towards the end,
he ended up being funny again,

and he was doing club shows.

It was like, oh, okay.
Now we can hang.

Well, I got a cousin
outside of St. Louis--Jabo.

He'd be my Secretary of Defense,

and I would just see these
white folks on "60 Minutes."

"Jabo, now that you're
Secretary,

what you plan on doing
about defense?"

"See, first I'm-a fix it,
then paint it."

[laughter]

- God bless. Dick Gregory.
- I met you when I was 19.

Here you are today
still kicking knowledge.

What drives you, sir?

- My bills.
- Mm.

[laughter]

He would never
get off the stage.

Imagine three hours on the stage
and then an hour and a half

doing a meet and greet
afterwards,

and it's like
one in the morning.

[Dick] I never thought I'd see
the day

that white folks would start
asking me to comment

on white folks problems.

I came back in from Europe
last month.

CNN. "Uh, Mr. Gregory, you think
we'll ever catch bin Laden?"

I said, "We?"

[laughter]

- I ain't looking for him.
- [laughter]

The best? I don't wanna talk
about who was the best.

I wanna talk about
who's the baddest.

I became aware of Dick Gregory

because there's something called

State of the Black Union,

and Dick Gregory
was always on the panel.

The Black brother
from Wells Fargo...

- [laughter]
- Uh-huh.

...head of the mortgages,

I pulled him over and said,
"I need to talk to you."

- [laughter]
- He said, "Brother Greg,

you need a mortgage?"

I said, "No, they took my house
when times was good."

[laughter]

I need two big banners,

one for the FBI
and one for the White House.

Picket it, shut the shit down,
and then...

and then go to jail.
You ready to go?

I think people get confused
and think

that he was an activist
who decided to be funny.

No, no, no, his soul was that
of a stand-up comic.

He just could not
just do that in a world

that was falling down
around him.

No, I wish Bill Clinton
was here

so I would apologize to him
for you Black folks.

This is why he's a comedian,
'cause...'cause...

'cause you bring up
Bill Clinton,

and all... every Black person
kinda goes,

"Okay, first Black president.
We, uh..."

But the fact is, we... I would
apologize to Bill Clinton.

Even as a Black person
who thinks

you know where he's going,
he's like, "Wait. What?"

No, I mean that.
You Black folks tricked him.

You went in
that big, old Black pot

and said, "Here, white boy.
You Black."

- [laughter]
- Huh?

And then you went back
in that Black pot

and said, "Here, Obama.
You ain't Black enough."

What kind of fool is you?

- [uproarious laughter]
- Huh?

What kind of fool is you?

He was at that age that he
really could say whatever.

Your children ain't violent
because they Black.

They ain't violent.

Most people in the world
lived in the ghetto.

They don't kill people.

What are you putting
in my malt liquor, white boy?

What are you putting in it? Huh?

And you could see everybody
next to him, like,

"Oh, man, I gotta follow this?
Like..." [laughs]

The week before he died,

Dick Gregory was still
doing engagements.

My son Christian was probably
getting ready

to take him to the airport,
and he said,

"Oh, I just don't feel so good,"
and then Christian said,

"Dad, wait a minute. You just
gotta cancel this engagement."

[Christian] We thought my father
was in the hospital

for a simple
urinary tract infection.

It wasn't until an astute eye
of a radiologist

caught what he believed to be
a significant problem

taking place
with my father's blood vessels.

And they said,
"We really don't think

he's gonna live that long."

And we were just like, "What?"
You know, we're just stunned.

I know he was ready to go.

He knows he had did everything
he needed to ever do.

And I just felt he...
he just...

I just wished a picture
could've been taken of his face.

To this day, it's the most
beautiful facial expression

that I've seen
in my entire life,

was that last wink made.

Just that last wink.

[exhales deeply]

The look on his face was
one of the most peaceful looks

I ever saw on his face
in my life.

And we just stayed right there,
and there it was.

We all quickly became
clear that

the... the...
the world just lost...

[voice breaking] uh...
an incredible human being.

hopeful music

[birds chirping]

[Dick]
I'll always have advocates,

many of my friends,
people that work for me,

that see through
all my ignorance

and can still see my dreams.

And that's what my wife
was able to do,

see through my hostility...

and see the love.

[birds chirping]

If young people were to ask me
what distinguished him,

I would say the fact
that he shook the body politic,

that he enjoyed flirting
with the establishment

on his terms.

I just fell in love with him
all the time.

He was just my man.

He lived an extraordinary life.

Like, most people

don't get to do a tenth...
[laughs]

of what he experienced.

If somebody told you, "Hey,
this guy did all these things

and was kind of oppressed,"
you'd be like, "Get outta here."

The thing you learn from
guys like that is... is try it.

Don't be lazy. Go for it.

You wanna tell jokes,
tell jokes.

If you don't think
you can do it, yes, you can.

You... Oh, you weigh 300 pounds.
Well, I'm gonna lose it.

Yes, you can lose it all.
You can make a lot of money.

You can lose a lot of money.

This guy lived the life,

and that's what
everyone should aspire to.

He saw the flaws

in how we were being treated
and where we were being placed.

He wanted to be a part
of the change,

and he always fought
for that change.

[Chappelle] The sacrifices he
made aren't necessarily required

of every artist,
but that there are

very special people
every few generations

we're blessed with
that are willing to do that.

And when you see these people,

you should give 'em your love
and your respect,

protect them to whatever extent
you can,

and try to recognize that

they're doing something
very difficult

for the benefit of all of us.

He set a very high bar for
the people that came after him.

He gave so much of himself
to a movement, to a people,

and he wasn't afraid to do that,

and I think the work that he did
is still necessary.

We still have to fight.
We still have to protest.

We still have to speak up.

[Sykes] When I started out
doing comedy,

I would look at the tapes
of him from back in the day,

and it definitely taught me
to aim higher.

When you gon' throw something,
aim higher.

[man] Mr. Gregory,
is there anything else

that you'd like to say
before we leave?

I've had white folks used to
tell me, "Love it or leave it."

[laughs] I'm not gon' leave
America till I straighten it out

and I'm not gon' love it
till she become lovable,

then I'm getting the fuck
outta here.

I know now that there is
a universal force

that controls the whole thing.

You can call it anything
you wanna call it.

One day, it's gonna balance out
all of our ledgers,

and it's gonna be
a simple question.

Not "How much money
did you make?

Was you funny?
Did they like you?

Were you a celebrity?
Who was your mother?

Who was your father?
Where did you live?

What school did you go to?

Where did you send your kids
to school?"

There's one simple question
that all of us

are going to deal with--

"How much service did you give
to your fellow human beings?"

Just that simple
and just that sweet.

- [man] Yes.
- [ applause ]

[Black Thought]
I'm tactical and strategic

Practical and collegiate

Enough to know
if you read it

Don't mean you need it,
I follow proper procedure

And get my money right off top
like alopecia

I see what's trending
was truly the end of an era

But it's forever or never,
I'm ever and ever

I am the vendetta
that's never been better

Than lyrical terrors,
incredibly clever

Perspective is meta

Y'all niggas need
to get it together

Like birds of a feather

I pen the words
of an Edgar...

Allan Poe
'cause I go for broke

Whether or not it's
for more cheddar

'Cause I am a go-getter

Loaded lines,
my bars bear the burden

I been in the gym overtime

No calls for disturbing
my over grind

And moving on me
gets you immobilized

My rhymes, super human,
I've been next to immortalized

The honorable, I come right
at you comical clowns

And break it down
into particles and molecules

So trying me is trying
the impossible

Slingshots to a monster
that keep darts in the arsenal

[Dick] I would like to say
thank you very much

and, uh, I really picked
a good time to quit.

Probably won't miss me at all.

Plus with all them clowns
in the White House,

they'll keep you laughing
for years to come.

[woman] Right on! All right.
All right, All right.