Speaker 1: You are listening and waiting on reparations of reduction of
Speaker 1: my heart radio than what's happening y'all? It is the
Speaker 1: dope knife. This is the lingua franca, and we are
Speaker 1: waiting on the reparation. I like the the the lingua franca.
Speaker 1: You should consider making that like a real official change.
Speaker 1: I dikett, but you know, like lingua franca is often
Speaker 1: used with what's that the singular definite article and that
Speaker 1: you know it's the you know, English is the lingua franca,
Speaker 1: is the lingua franca of the internet. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: France is the lingua franca in uh quote unquote both
Speaker 1: colonial Africa. So so where did where did the name come?
Speaker 1: Because I don't think we've ever really discussed where a
Speaker 1: red We not ever talked about this word. So um
Speaker 1: so yeah, I have a master's in English for some
Speaker 1: fucking reason, and I and sudden linguist has learned about
Speaker 1: lingua francos, which are languages used to communicate across um
Speaker 1: cultural boundary. So like I was saying, you know, Mandarin
Speaker 1: um as the official language of China is the lingua franchise.
Speaker 1: Even the various dialects have spoken all over China, um,
Speaker 1: and I could get all into the languages versus dialect.
Speaker 1: But um, so, I you know, adopted this to my
Speaker 1: rap name because I wanted my music to be a
Speaker 1: lingual franchise for all kinds of people come together around
Speaker 1: the music that name, and I hope that's true. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's a way more like noble reason than BT it. Obviously,
Speaker 1: my name is Mac, but like I used to have
Speaker 1: a homie, you still call me Mac the Knife back
Speaker 1: in the day, and yeah, yeah, so like I'll be.
Speaker 1: My first rap name for years was just Mac. I
Speaker 1: would just go by Mac. And then I just didn't
Speaker 1: like the way that it looked like on the back
Speaker 1: of mixed on the back of mix tapes, and just
Speaker 1: look weird to see everybody with cool rap code names.
Speaker 1: Like before people started just rapping by their their government
Speaker 1: and ship like that. So it's like everyone's got like yo,
Speaker 1: I'm Spike, Yo, I'm little this young man. I was
Speaker 1: just like I'm Mac. It's like, no, I got a chance.
Speaker 1: So I started going by Knife and I was in
Speaker 1: a group Dope Sandwich. Long story short, you know, when
Speaker 1: the group disbanded, it was kind of like, let me
Speaker 1: keep the dope too, you know, symbolize my crew that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. This ain't a regular knife. This is
Speaker 1: a dope knight exactly exactly. Funny Ship was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but every now and then, Joe Rogan,
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about like an actual knife on Instagram
Speaker 1: or Twitter or some should be like a dope name.
Speaker 1: You'll say this is a dope knife, and then my
Speaker 1: mentions will go fucking crazy for like a day. You capitalize, Yeah,
Speaker 1: y'all would hate me. Um. Yeah, anyway, so we're back.
Speaker 1: How's your Weeker? Week was good? A week has been?
Speaker 1: Oh weak? Um, I have been on one with regards
Speaker 1: to my like uh my, my, my perpetual tustling with
Speaker 1: the cops or yeah, we need to follow up on
Speaker 1: what we talked about last Okay, So I talked to
Speaker 1: you about how the police people was like real mad
Speaker 1: at me, and uh yeah, So that all kind of
Speaker 1: just dissipated in that the county manager kind of had
Speaker 1: a word with him about his behavior because not only
Speaker 1: was what he said just just generally offensive and inappropriate,
Speaker 1: it was in violation of the county charter, like the
Speaker 1: literal structure of how a government is supposed to work
Speaker 1: in certain ways. So they had a little chat UM
Speaker 1: and uh so that was all fine, But I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: y'all thought you gonna silence me, but that's never going
Speaker 1: to happen. Was it just like a talking to or
Speaker 1: did he get disciplined somehow? No? He It was described
Speaker 1: as a counseling, which I think is like a you know,
Speaker 1: a way to stoppen like hey, but we're just gonna
Speaker 1: have a little chat, you know, only it was a
Speaker 1: disciplinary matter. Probably felt like it for someone that operates
Speaker 1: with utter impunity um, as law enforcement often does. But
Speaker 1: excuse me, but so I pinned another opinion of editorial
Speaker 1: on Monday night, UM just about revolutionary optimism and just
Speaker 1: like how to understand losing UM because I had read
Speaker 1: another article recently um to crying like to fund the
Speaker 1: police that's like UM and and the like plooral vulnerability
Speaker 1: and a failed movement and how people need to move on,
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to reframe some of the evidence
Speaker 1: they used that the HI fund had failed for people
Speaker 1: that who might be more sensitive to that kind of rhetoric.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a lot of young people out here
Speaker 1: who have their hope really high that they contained to
Speaker 1: the world, and so I just wanted to like offer
Speaker 1: them a word of hope in ways that probably further angered, um,
Speaker 1: the law enforcement officials in my community. But you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not worried about it. I'm not wal worried about it.
Speaker 1: They got a problem with it. They know where they
Speaker 1: could stick it. About that, I mean, I don't I know,
Speaker 1: you can't say that. I can't say that. I will
Speaker 1: not say that, but um, I will say that I
Speaker 1: have frequently found at moments of high tension when I
Speaker 1: am getting like yelled at by many people about something,
Speaker 1: it generally coincides with when something really important is happening
Speaker 1: in a very important conversation that we need to have
Speaker 1: is happening. So it's not something like eye relashan or
Speaker 1: just like it does. It does come with a personal
Speaker 1: and cost and cost my mental health. But it's like, mm,
Speaker 1: I've seen this correlation a lot. It probably means that
Speaker 1: this is important if this is starting to happen to me, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it is always always recognizing and prioritizing what's
Speaker 1: important versus what's not. You know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: knowing would what battles to fight and win. So yeah, um,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's get into what we're getting into today.
Speaker 1: So today is an episode that we have been long
Speaker 1: talking about for the last two weeks. We are going
Speaker 1: to be talking about the man, the myth, the legend,
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory, now Richard Claxton Gregory as he's in Claxton Claxton,
Speaker 1: let me talk to Claxton. Richard Claxton Gregory was comedian, author,
Speaker 1: civil rights and health activists. Born October twelfth, nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 1: He would eventually pass away August nineteen. His career had
Speaker 1: several moments of social relevance, from his rise in stand
Speaker 1: up comedy in the fifties, his civil rights work alongside
Speaker 1: Mega Evers and MLK in the sixties, his anti Vietnam
Speaker 1: War activism in the seventies, and jump start that jump
Speaker 1: started by a health and fitness revolution that he had
Speaker 1: going on in the eighties. I mean, the brother was
Speaker 1: fitness revolution. I want to have a health and fitness revolution.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like, I mean like his his impact on
Speaker 1: health and fitness in the eighties was so much that
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory became like a what's the word I'm looking
Speaker 1: for this linguist. It's like like people would say something like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you're looking good. You've been you've been losing weight? Oh yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you know I've been doing that. Dick Gregory, his name
Speaker 1: became with health and fitness exactly like even a house party,
Speaker 1: house party, there's a there's a part where like there's
Speaker 1: a there's an overweight guy, but he's like tell us,
Speaker 1: He's like, yo, bring me over. Some of that did
Speaker 1: Gregory because like Dick Gregor used to have this uh
Speaker 1: like vitamin mineral supplement juice thing. He was he was
Speaker 1: really really had, you know, headstart on the whole juice
Speaker 1: and juicing movement and all that clear about which one
Speaker 1: were talking about here, all right, So um yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into that. We're going to dive into his
Speaker 1: life at times, talk about some of his activism over
Speaker 1: the years, and you know, just for for for caps
Speaker 1: who do know Dick Gregory and have heard of him,
Speaker 1: because he is a pretty famous dude. You know, uh,
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna be here and some of the things,
Speaker 1: you know, you might hear some stuff you don't know.
Speaker 1: But for some of the younger folks out there who
Speaker 1: have never heard of I never I never heard about Dickory.
Speaker 1: You never heard Okay, So see, like, why how did
Speaker 1: I come to hear about Dick Gregory. Besides for like
Speaker 1: the colloquial you know, references like in weight loss and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I think I started hearing about him
Speaker 1: in the like early two thousand's. I mean, obviously he
Speaker 1: had been around for longer, but I think the early
Speaker 1: two thousand's he uh started speaking or at least in
Speaker 1: forms where I would see, like he would speak at
Speaker 1: like BT events, and you know, I think Martin Lawrence
Speaker 1: did like a comedy special that he was part of
Speaker 1: in his old in his advanced old age and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So it was always like, oh man, this
Speaker 1: is like some old dude talking some real ship. And
Speaker 1: obviously there's more two of them than I knew, you know,
Speaker 1: And and that that was pretty much my exposure to
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory. But this will be cool of you hadn't
Speaker 1: heard of him before this. Yeah, let's get it all right.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with that after the jump. Okay,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, we are back and we are about
Speaker 1: to jump into this whole thing with Dick Gregory. Now
Speaker 1: Gregory attended. The one thing I'm gonna say first, The
Speaker 1: one thing I'm gonna stay first, is that, do you
Speaker 1: hear me? Yeah? Okay, the one do you want to
Speaker 1: stay first? We're talking about, like, oh, who you know?
Speaker 1: Have you? Young folks haven't heard Dick Gregory? Now? If
Speaker 1: you had to sit me down and say, who do
Speaker 1: you think Clacton Gregory was, I'd be like, it's me
Speaker 1: the governor of Mississippi. Did he hey, my grandfather from
Speaker 1: a tree and steal his land? And still a little
Speaker 1: just today like like the odest want to say, that
Speaker 1: is surprising. I think a lot of what we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about today if prising, given the old timiness of
Speaker 1: his name. I does don't trust old timins. Nobody name Ethel,
Speaker 1: I don't trust nobody names. Loraine do trust no Bertha,
Speaker 1: none of y'all. Note y'all cool with me? Well, Gregory
Speaker 1: is still a little even just that a lot like
Speaker 1: looking at you so sideways? I don't know about that. Well.
Speaker 1: In Dick Gregory's defense, I had never heard the name
Speaker 1: Claxton used in in association with Dick Gregory until looking
Speaker 1: at his Wikipedia thing. So it's not I only I've
Speaker 1: only ever heard the name Claxton. It was the last
Speaker 1: name of the whitest girl in my elementary He was
Speaker 1: trans loosened in the light. I think there was a
Speaker 1: basketball player back in the day called Speedy Claxton. This
Speaker 1: nigga's name was Speedy Claxton. Yeah, be Claxton, BEDI Claxton,
Speaker 1: And it wasn't a nickname. Nigga's name was Speedy. I just,
Speaker 1: I just, I mean, I joked on this in my head.
Speaker 1: Should I say out loud? There's so many anyways, So
Speaker 1: Speedy class did attend me. Clas Dick Gregory attended Southern
Speaker 1: Illinois University on a track scholarship before getting drafted into
Speaker 1: the United States Army. Now, it was in the Army
Speaker 1: that he would eventually get his quote unquote start in
Speaker 1: comedy after he was urged on by a commanding officer
Speaker 1: to get into the game, who he noticed that he
Speaker 1: had a pension for telling jokes. That's surprising as hell
Speaker 1: in itself, given how regimented and soul prefting the army
Speaker 1: is like. And you know what we don't do around
Speaker 1: here a lot? How fun? You know what you're good
Speaker 1: at making people have fun? We're talking about fired. We're
Speaker 1: talking about early fifties too, you know. Yeah, so so
Speaker 1: he uh, he ended up getting into that way. He
Speaker 1: would eventually go back to the Southern Illinois University, but
Speaker 1: he only went I think, uh for maybe like another
Speaker 1: year or so before he dropped out. He would state
Speaker 1: that the school wanted him to run and not to learn,
Speaker 1: but in any event, he was considering using this as
Speaker 1: a jumping off point to try to pursue a career
Speaker 1: and being a professional stand up comic. Speaking of what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna butt in with all kinds of random ship
Speaker 1: because um, I'm drinking Carlo Carlo Rassi go speaking of
Speaker 1: dropping out of college. Um we uh. We talked about
Speaker 1: student debt on like episode maybe a year ago, and
Speaker 1: it's been coming up a lot because the re loan
Speaker 1: payments are about to start again like in sixty days
Speaker 1: and everybody's real mad about it and the Democrats gonna
Speaker 1: lose the make terms over it. But this issue, but
Speaker 1: didn't Biden already drop it? Then he said, no, I
Speaker 1: don't didn't do ship for anybody. I mean not to know.
Speaker 1: He didn't get child tax credit. That was pretty cool,
Speaker 1: but in in researching this whole issue because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: trying to push war kN off at a stop to
Speaker 1: get behind the other congress people who are pushing canceled
Speaker 1: student debt. Um. I learned that of student loan borrowers
Speaker 1: drop out of college. They don't even finish coup. They
Speaker 1: got like thirty thousand, sixty dollars and loans, but they
Speaker 1: only have an agreed So. But back in back in
Speaker 1: Claxton's days, Um, you don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1: You go to the army. You know, you get your
Speaker 1: school paid. I mean, I guess that's still true. But
Speaker 1: you know, college costs like three thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: You can be making nickels at the little so to
Speaker 1: float shop on Main Street and pay for that ship.
Speaker 1: So he's like, Who's like, yo, I don't pay ship
Speaker 1: for this degree. What's up going to become a professional comedian? Probably?
Speaker 1: I mean it's contrasting the you know, the time a
Speaker 1: little bit so. So somewhere somewhere after he uh left
Speaker 1: school and left the army, he would have tried his
Speaker 1: hand in opening up a comedy club, but that would
Speaker 1: eventually fail, wouldn't work out the way that he wanted to,
Speaker 1: but he still stuck with it, still kept doing his comedy,
Speaker 1: and his star was rising. He became part of a
Speaker 1: new generation of black comedians that included Nipsey Russell. Stop
Speaker 1: I didn't know that Nipsey Hustle's name came from somewhere.
Speaker 1: Stop it, I didn't know. Yeah, yeah, Nipsey Russell. He
Speaker 1: was a comedian, yeah, obviously, but I mean he was
Speaker 1: like he's like one of those um he's like one
Speaker 1: of those like old like Amos and Andy type of
Speaker 1: comedians like back in the day, you know, apparently because
Speaker 1: he was born in fucking nineteen eighteen. Yeah, yeah, like
Speaker 1: like this in Atlanta, which makes me more embarrassed. I
Speaker 1: didn't know who he was. Well, see, okay, so you know,
Speaker 1: part of that generation with Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby, Godfred Cambridge.
Speaker 1: These are all guys who broke the whole minstrel show
Speaker 1: tradition and show buzin at the time. They're bucking stereotypical
Speaker 1: portrayals of black people and that Gregory, as far as
Speaker 1: his comedy goes, it's much akin to something that we
Speaker 1: would recognize now, at least like in like an early
Speaker 1: day of Chappelle or Chris Rock stuff like that where
Speaker 1: a lot of his comedy was based on the racial
Speaker 1: issues of the day. Um well, here's what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say about that, though, is that as much as you
Speaker 1: can be groundbreaking and like showing the many facets of blackness,
Speaker 1: I feel like, and we'll get into more of like
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory's like audience in a bit, but when we
Speaker 1: talk about people like Bill Cosby, who I know is
Speaker 1: really influential you know, to me when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: but even people like Dave Chappelle, like, at some point
Speaker 1: you are performing for white people, particularly in the era
Speaker 1: when you have like stuff on TV, you have Netflix, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not as like geographically to find the audiences. So
Speaker 1: it's not like you're performing in a comedy club but
Speaker 1: a black neighborhood. It's like you've got special on Netflix.
Speaker 1: Who knows he's watching it, and so like like it's
Speaker 1: almost like, I hate to say this, but in some
Speaker 1: ways it could still be minstrel ce like because you're
Speaker 1: still kind of like, you know, doing a song and
Speaker 1: dance for white people, even if you don't mean to.
Speaker 1: Even if it's not as like like that, it's not
Speaker 1: as flattening of the black experience, as like menstre Ce
Speaker 1: was when they're like openly like trying to make white
Speaker 1: people laugh about black people, think about like the making
Speaker 1: of Claxton, think about Clayton Bigsby. Like I remember when
Speaker 1: I was in middle school and that should dropped. I
Speaker 1: had a bunch of fucking like white friends who were
Speaker 1: in bands with me, like laughing about like you know, nigger, nigger, nigga,
Speaker 1: this and that. Like it's like problematic because it kind
Speaker 1: of reinforces some stiff that people think about black people
Speaker 1: if they don't know actual black people. But not to
Speaker 1: say that Dick Gregory was like that, I'm the stand
Speaker 1: Like when we talk about breaking with the minstrel minstrel
Speaker 1: show tradition, I think it's like a complex thing accident.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I mean, first, Dick Gregory wasn't even
Speaker 1: well we'll get into a little bit of what he
Speaker 1: thought about his audience and the changing his audience and
Speaker 1: who he was trying to reach. But Dick Gregory himself
Speaker 1: personally wasn't against the minstrel shows. He wasn't against the
Speaker 1: amos and Andy's and stuff like that. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, He's quoted saying that the problem was much
Speaker 1: like today, is that there wasn't ballads. You know. He
Speaker 1: was like, it's not a matter of, oh, get rid
Speaker 1: of Amos and Andy. It's a matter of that's all
Speaker 1: that there is. So that they're not showing the full
Speaker 1: facets of blackness as as he would go on to
Speaker 1: describe it. But I mean also also we're not talking like,
Speaker 1: um metaphorical minstrel ship. Yeah. I mean, like the comedians
Speaker 1: that that Dick Gregory was coming after were literally minstrel shows.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like like literally like bug
Speaker 1: very specific in that context. Yeah, like like so, so
Speaker 1: by bucking that tradition, I just mean that and the
Speaker 1: little like I mean that, I mean that in the
Speaker 1: technical sense. I would say if somebody started doing sound
Speaker 1: film and they went from silent film, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Yeah, nothing makes sense. There's a metaphorical sense, uh,
Speaker 1: and then there's a literal, actual contextual, historical sense. And
Speaker 1: I think saying in this instance, yea. So he would
Speaker 1: credit his jump off to Hugh Hefner, the owner of
Speaker 1: owner of founder of Playboy. Now a lot of people
Speaker 1: have again for our younger audience, and obviously it's way
Speaker 1: before my time. But the Playboy Club in the Playboy
Speaker 1: clubs that were like franchise around the US were like
Speaker 1: a big deal in the fifties and sixties. Franchise. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry when you said franchise, you made me think when
Speaker 1: Playboy clubs were like a fucking stunty tea or some ship.
Speaker 1: Well that's kind of ride down to your local frit mall.
Speaker 1: Come on, kids, hop into them. We're gonna go. The
Speaker 1: Playboy clubs. Well that's how it was. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: the Playboy Club. It wasn't they weren't They were like
Speaker 1: it's the actual phrase, quote unquote gentleman club is that what?
Speaker 1: There weren't necessarily strip clubs, you know what I mean
Speaker 1: there was, There weren't women dancing naked and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It was more so it was more so just like
Speaker 1: you know, stuffy white guys in suits smoking cigars and
Speaker 1: as when it just it just had a lot of
Speaker 1: popularity to it. You know, there's like a Playboy Club Chicago,
Speaker 1: there's a Playboy Club Club l A. And I just
Speaker 1: mean in a time before their work chuck e cheeses
Speaker 1: and stuff like the Playboy Club was a big deal.
Speaker 1: So when Dick Gregory got his opportunity to um oh,
Speaker 1: when he threw a chance encounter with Hugh Hefner, Hugh Hefner,
Speaker 1: you know, decided to have him fill in on a
Speaker 1: spot at the Playboy Club. And just from the you know,
Speaker 1: like the Playboy Club is, it's kind of like what
Speaker 1: has that. It's kind of like if you're on like
Speaker 1: a huge podcast or something like that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like once, once you play the Playboy Club as a comedian,
Speaker 1: then it's then your name starts getting out there. So
Speaker 1: that that's uh so he he took to the day
Speaker 1: he died. He accredited Hugh Hefner with launching his comedy career.
Speaker 1: What do you think? I mean, that's cool. Good for him,
Speaker 1: that's great. I'm so caught up on this, like idea
Speaker 1: of the Playboy Club. Still think about Chucky Teas. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: the Dave of Busters is like David bust Ut, Yeah,
Speaker 1: go in there in your leisure student, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: get asthma from breathing in the car smoke. You should.
Speaker 1: You should check out some like some old footage from
Speaker 1: the old Playboy Club things, because I just you know,
Speaker 1: in this I think through time maybe it just it
Speaker 1: has a different connotation. Not that it wasn't like some
Speaker 1: it's a ton of girls in bonny ears and little
Speaker 1: leotard's I'm not complaining about, but that definitely was the case.
Speaker 1: I just mean, you know, it wasn't a strip club.
Speaker 1: You know, if you think Playboy and you have clothes,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot. Yeah, this is fine, it's cool.
Speaker 1: So while we're working for the United States Postal Service
Speaker 1: in the daytime, Gregory performance comedian small primarily black patronized nightclubs.
Speaker 1: In an interview with The Huffington's Post, Gregory described the
Speaker 1: history of black comics as limited. Blacks could sing, Blacks
Speaker 1: could sing and dance in the white nightclubs, but weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to stand flat footed and talk to white folks,
Speaker 1: which is what comic does. And there's something about that
Speaker 1: quote dans flat footed, like what am I supposed to
Speaker 1: doing on my tippytales around white people? No, he's saying,
Speaker 1: he's saying, it's just unders a funny image. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean comedians don't sing and dance. I guess that is
Speaker 1: what he was saying, at least not the style of
Speaker 1: comedy that he was doing. He you know, because like
Speaker 1: again he was doing like that. Gregory used to get
Speaker 1: some of the criticism that he would get from other
Speaker 1: black comedians of the day is that he was too serious.
Speaker 1: You know. A lot, a lot of the criticism that
Speaker 1: he would get was, oh man, he's more of an
Speaker 1: activist the comedian of his his stuff is more angry
Speaker 1: than funny, you know what I'm saying. So like for
Speaker 1: him him going to the Playboy Club and doing a
Speaker 1: set at the time, it's like, hey, this isn't like
Speaker 1: somebody come up their wide eyed talking about hey boss,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's like a fucking suave
Speaker 1: you know, smooth, cool ass, intelligent black dude smoking us
Speaker 1: a guard talking about real ship of the day like like.
Speaker 1: Because of the razor early charged nature of his act,
Speaker 1: the administration the University of Tennessee, for instance, along with others,
Speaker 1: branded him as an extreme racist whose appearance would be
Speaker 1: an outrage and an insult to many citizens of the state,
Speaker 1: and they revoked his inverstation by students to speak on campus.
Speaker 1: The students sued, and they noted. The students sued with
Speaker 1: noted litigator William Kunstler as their counsel, and in Smith
Speaker 1: versus the University of Tennessee, they want an order from
Speaker 1: the court that the university's policy was too broad and vague.
Speaker 1: In the University of Tennessee implemented an open speaker system
Speaker 1: and Dick Gregory would eventually get to perform, and they oh,
Speaker 1: you won, my friend, great job. Proud of him. It
Speaker 1: would be one of one of many wins. But so
Speaker 1: what are your what are your thoughts about that so far?
Speaker 1: I mean I think that whenever like you raised any
Speaker 1: kind of issues at all, whenever you're speaking realness people,
Speaker 1: I want to say, you're angry, Like if you're ever
Speaker 1: not just like going with the grain, people are gonna
Speaker 1: be like, oh, even like staying is racially charged. I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I mean, like you throught it's talk
Speaker 1: about real ship like everybody's found down, but that it
Speaker 1: ultimately like came to a four case and everything, but
Speaker 1: order that it came before the courts that like, yo,
Speaker 1: y'all need to like y'all need to skill is I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a little ridiculous. But this is yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean this is like he would have he would
Speaker 1: eventually get to speak in nineteen seventies, but all this
Speaker 1: stuff end in the fifth I didn't even make that connection.
Speaker 1: Man that so um Gregory noted that as his stardom
Speaker 1: in the world of comedy rose, he couldn't ignore the
Speaker 1: images that he was seeing from the struggle down South
Speaker 1: and civil rightings. Many black celebs at the time avoided
Speaker 1: really getting their feet wet in it or commentating on
Speaker 1: it like that out of you know, fear recussions losing
Speaker 1: their career, alienating an audience that perhaps they wanted to maintain.
Speaker 1: So a lot of them didn't mention it. But he
Speaker 1: found like a lot of struggle with just sitting back
Speaker 1: and making money while this was going on. And he
Speaker 1: also didn't feel comfortable just sending a check, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like he he didn't think that that
Speaker 1: was adequate. So he had a conversation with his wife
Speaker 1: and he told her, Hey, I'm about to embark on this,
Speaker 1: and like, I know that I'm a I'm a I'm
Speaker 1: i'm a rising star comedian right now, but you know,
Speaker 1: are you all right with understanding that all this ship
Speaker 1: could end now? And I mean, that's what you gotta do?
Speaker 1: Some downs And I look so he put his career
Speaker 1: at risk. In nineteen sixty three, he went to Selma.
Speaker 1: He spoke for two hours on the public platform UH
Speaker 1: two days before voter registration drive known as Freedom Day.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, he helped the search for three
Speaker 1: missing civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Scharner,
Speaker 1: who vanished in Philadelphia, Mississippi. After Gregory and members of
Speaker 1: the Corps the Congress for Racial Equality, they met with
Speaker 1: the Nashoba County Sheriff, Lawrence A. Rainey, and de Gregory
Speaker 1: became convinced the sheriff's office was complicit, so with cash
Speaker 1: provided to him by Hugh Hefner, Gregory announced the twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollar reward for information, and the FBI, which
Speaker 1: had been criticized for their inaction, event truly followed the
Speaker 1: suit with its own reward. And the rewards were the
Speaker 1: bodies of the three men were found by the FBI
Speaker 1: for you, four days after they disappeared. You said their names.
Speaker 1: It's like I know their names from somewhere because they
Speaker 1: were fucking murdered. Um. Great, but hey, great job getting
Speaker 1: The FBI did not merely breakup social movements, but pretend
Speaker 1: to care when their arbiters are, you know, mysteriously disappeared
Speaker 1: in kilt. Great good job, Bethy, I we love you.
Speaker 1: This isn't gonna be the last of the FBI and
Speaker 1: the Dick Gregory story. Now you you remember the Cointel
Speaker 1: pro stuff, right o? Can I forget? I think about
Speaker 1: every day every day in my life. Hey, like he
Speaker 1: he Dick Gregory is one of those figures. Now. Remember
Speaker 1: remember when we were talking about it, we were talking
Speaker 1: about music and musicians in the right. But they had
Speaker 1: like a whole like j Edgar Hoover had a whole
Speaker 1: thing out for black comedians, with Dick Gregory being one
Speaker 1: of his number one targets in it. So Gregory was beaten,
Speaker 1: he was jailed, he was hose, he got his arm
Speaker 1: broken down there, he had dogs sicked on him. Him
Speaker 1: and his friend, his friends Mega evers and MLK Mega
Speaker 1: Evers who he was actually personal personal friends with. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, he was actually personal friends with
Speaker 1: Mega evers Um. During his work that he was doing
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement, his uh son passed away, so
Speaker 1: he ended up having to leave to go back to
Speaker 1: Chicago to you know, deal with that whole situation and
Speaker 1: Mega Evers were and how they like pretty much any
Speaker 1: other's company. There are a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: was the only reason that did Gregory wasn't gunned down
Speaker 1: is because he had left to go attend his child's funeral.
Speaker 1: Otherwise he otherwise he would have been on in that
Speaker 1: in the front of that driveway with Mega Evers when
Speaker 1: he was shot. Oh god, don't missing the ship. Oh god,
Speaker 1: he would. I mean, obviously, all this is to just
Speaker 1: set up the fact that this brother went from comedian
Speaker 1: on the rise to recognizing injustice as he saw it
Speaker 1: and putting his money where his mouth was, which is, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm about to get involved. It might affect my career
Speaker 1: for the negative, but you gotta stand by they print
Speaker 1: what your principle, don't you know what I'm saying? And
Speaker 1: see you know, we've had conversations on the show before
Speaker 1: about the role of celebrities in social movements, and it's
Speaker 1: a very complicated conversation because there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't opinions down there and trying to jump in and
Speaker 1: like helped it. Throw a lot of money around, is
Speaker 1: thely what they like to do because they don't actually
Speaker 1: have to put their bodies on the line. It's just
Speaker 1: like I mean, in this case, he was like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's twenty five dollars. He's somewhat in that same vein.
Speaker 1: But you see that very often where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I announced this partnership and with Venmo where we're gonna
Speaker 1: like you know, give your kids, um, you know, diabetes
Speaker 1: medication or whatever. Um. But like there's something something about
Speaker 1: this to me. I mean maybe it's because of like
Speaker 1: there's a stali nostalgizing of like the Civil rights movement
Speaker 1: where everything seems so pure and like their ideals were
Speaker 1: so untainted that like I mean, and also here that
Speaker 1: Gregory like actually put himself on the line. He was
Speaker 1: out there with folks like close to folks who are
Speaker 1: losing their lives in the struggle. Like it feels a
Speaker 1: little more like authentic than some of the like what's
Speaker 1: the activism you see of like I don't know, people
Speaker 1: just showing up on marches to put it on the
Speaker 1: grahnd or like you know, I announced the partnership with MasterCard,
Speaker 1: were we're not gonna beat your kids, or like you know, well,
Speaker 1: I mean just to put it in this context, right,
Speaker 1: and Okay, I don't think that I have that I
Speaker 1: should have to preface it by saying fucking Bill Cosby.
Speaker 1: But all right, we all know fun Bill Cosby off
Speaker 1: the jump, right, but you know we're hip hop show.
Speaker 1: It's not like a clear position support someone deeply embedded
Speaker 1: in hip hop and necessarily a whole. Yeah that's true.
Speaker 1: True that too that that could be a whole unfortunately.
Speaker 1: But um but like you heard of Bill Cosby, right,
Speaker 1: and you haven't heard of Dick Gregory. You the reason
Speaker 1: that you had heard of Bill Cosby Gregory is not
Speaker 1: because like Bill Cosby was just like so infinitely funnier
Speaker 1: than Dick, because it was because one gave up his career,
Speaker 1: like for real, for real was it was like like that.
Speaker 1: And that's what you don't see. You don't see activists.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, um, yeah, you don't see. You don't
Speaker 1: see celebrities like I am going to risk my fortune.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna risk my millions and billions crime his prime
Speaker 1: prime in the beginning, like he had just he it
Speaker 1: would be like if it would be like if Drake
Speaker 1: left Wrap to go do activism stuff in like two
Speaker 1: thousand ten, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't even really got, you know, fully like become what
Speaker 1: he what he was gonna become what he did. That
Speaker 1: his activism would expand into different areas as time went on,
Speaker 1: you know, because like you know, we're obviously jump cutting
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But you know, through the course
Speaker 1: of all this stuff, Mega Evers dies, he continues to fight,
Speaker 1: m Okay dies, He continues to fight and continues being
Speaker 1: a civil rights uh figure. But you know, as time
Speaker 1: goes on, this would expand to anti Vietnam War activism,
Speaker 1: economic reform activism, anti drug issues, which he did stay
Speaker 1: away from. He stayed away from doing any sort of
Speaker 1: like p s a don't do drugs stuff because he
Speaker 1: was like, man, I can't tell these kids not to
Speaker 1: do drugs when if you see my stand up, I'm
Speaker 1: like standing there like with a glass of scotch smoking
Speaker 1: cigarettes like they're going out of stop. But but but
Speaker 1: as he got more into like his activist activist activist
Speaker 1: stage and you know, entered into his forties, he became
Speaker 1: a lot more conscious about a man, these drugs are
Speaker 1: destroyed the community and stuff like that. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: um he uh It's part of his activism. One of
Speaker 1: the things that he became pretty popular for as an activist.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, people were telling him, like first
Speaker 1: when he got into activism, people were saying, hey, stick
Speaker 1: to comedy. Right. Then he gets into activism, he does
Speaker 1: all that stuff during the civil rights era, the Vietnam
Speaker 1: War stars he starts speaking out about that, people start going, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you should stick to civil right. So it's just like
Speaker 1: it's just like a never that's wild. You never hear that.
Speaker 1: You never ever hear that. They're always telling us to
Speaker 1: shut up and dribble and ship. And they're like now
Speaker 1: they're like, no, stick with the original activism. Um. But
Speaker 1: now he he went in on the on the Vietnam War,
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry I caught myself in the thought. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that he was popular for in
Speaker 1: terms of the strikes that he would organize, he would
Speaker 1: organize hunger strikes where he himself would fast and you know,
Speaker 1: put his body through a lot of strain in order
Speaker 1: to make the points that he was making. But he
Speaker 1: would he would do these hunger strikes like for for
Speaker 1: all of these different movements. He would get a lot
Speaker 1: of people to join him to the point to where
Speaker 1: he started backing off on that because of like the
Speaker 1: young people who were following in his footsteps and like
Speaker 1: actually getting pretty sick doing it, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: because they weren't like helping enthusiastic enthusiasts like he was
Speaker 1: when they were trying to do it. But he caused
Speaker 1: up so much ship in the seventies over the Vietnam War,
Speaker 1: brother ended up getting banned from Australia by the government
Speaker 1: because they feared that his presence in the country would
Speaker 1: stir up demonstrate his presence alone would stir up demonstrations
Speaker 1: against the You know how you got you know what
Speaker 1: a bad bits you had to be to get banned
Speaker 1: from Australia. You know, you know only should have been
Speaker 1: in Australia an assault weapons and you gotta be a real,
Speaker 1: real bad bit in Australia for real. And like you
Speaker 1: don't even got the Internet to spread your message and
Speaker 1: you're getting banned, you getting banned off, You're getting banned
Speaker 1: off a newspaper press. Um. He would take this anti
Speaker 1: war activism and use that to get into politics. So
Speaker 1: he first got into politics in nineteen sixty seven when
Speaker 1: he ran for the mayor of Chicago. You did not win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he grew up against fucking Richard Daily. It proved
Speaker 1: that it wouldn't be Chicago. So I mean, like, so,
Speaker 1: like what what what is that? What do you feel
Speaker 1: about that? That turn? Like from that now, going from now,
Speaker 1: going from activism to like trying to get into electoral politics.
Speaker 1: I mean that makes sense. I mean as an entertainer
Speaker 1: and I saw this story a lot, I think it
Speaker 1: prepares you for life and politics in a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways. He used to standing up from a bunch
Speaker 1: of people saying some wild shit, Um, use your platform
Speaker 1: to organize, you know, if you can fill the room
Speaker 1: with people and captivate them with the story you tell.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what politicians do. That's what organizers and
Speaker 1: activists do. This trajectory makes a ton of sense to me,
Speaker 1: though it is I mean personally though it might not
Speaker 1: make logical sense in like a common sense way. It's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of what I did. I don't know, so,
Speaker 1: but running against yeah, Richard Daily for mayor Chico. That's
Speaker 1: that's dope. That's who was So who is Richard Daily?
Speaker 1: So Richard Daily? Uh, he was like, let me hold on,
Speaker 1: let me refresh my memory on this, Like he like
Speaker 1: storied storied mayor of Chicago. Um the um he was
Speaker 1: re elected. I think he was re elected like five times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like so he had six terms in office. Was he
Speaker 1: an asshole? I mean he was a mayor. Probably a
Speaker 1: little bit um comes with the territory. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: like he Um he was like for gun control, which
Speaker 1: I think even in this era, that's probably predated. No,
Speaker 1: this was this is post I mean, but like you know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about talking about gun control out on the
Speaker 1: show and how it's a little bit uh it's it's
Speaker 1: uh inequitable, inherently given. Like black people today effectively can't
Speaker 1: own guns in that like if you even look like
Speaker 1: you if you have a cell phone in your hand,
Speaker 1: you'll get shot down. Um O don't No, I can't
Speaker 1: remember a whole lot about him other than like he
Speaker 1: was the mayor for a long time, like a long time, long, long, long,
Speaker 1: long time. That's probably why he was so famous because
Speaker 1: like the nigga was in that ship for like what
Speaker 1: fucking Yeah, he got elected nineteen eighty nine and he
Speaker 1: was reelected five times until declining to run for a
Speaker 1: seventh term. I can't believe that's even aloud. That's some
Speaker 1: fucking synegal ship yo, Like you're straight up the mayor
Speaker 1: for most people's like entire teenage in twenties Banana so
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory said, I feel that the two party system
Speaker 1: is obsolete. The two party system is so corrupted a
Speaker 1: moral they cannot solve the problems confronting the masses of
Speaker 1: the people in this country. I agree with that. That sounds.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's onto something. I think he's onto something.
Speaker 1: I mean, like here we are today. Uh, I don't
Speaker 1: even want to get in today. I don't even want
Speaker 1: to get into today in that like I feel like
Speaker 1: it's it's maybe I'm just an an adult now and
Speaker 1: like I don't have the rosy I do of all
Speaker 1: that anymore. But like, yeah, I feel that ship man.
Speaker 1: I feel that well. I mean, you know, because the
Speaker 1: whole the whole thing is we need we need people
Speaker 1: like you to not be cynical, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like people like you know, I know. I'm I'm yeah, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. I'm revolutionary optionists over here. I
Speaker 1: give no fox about the existing quote order. I'm just
Speaker 1: about trying to make change through the stake or outside
Speaker 1: of it. It's cool. I appreciate this guy that he
Speaker 1: was speaking. This truth backing was a NT yet so
Speaker 1: he in sixty eight. In sixty eight, he ran for
Speaker 1: president of the United States as a writing candidate for
Speaker 1: the Freedom and Peace Party, which had broken off from
Speaker 1: the Peace and Freedom Party. That sounds ridiculous, but cool. No, man,
Speaker 1: if you saw the way these the internal factions of
Speaker 1: things like the Democratic Socialists from America, things can't agree
Speaker 1: on chit. They don't hate each other, each other's girlfriends
Speaker 1: hitting their jewels in their little meetings at the local library.
Speaker 1: Then they don't know what's going on. That makes no sense. No,
Speaker 1: that's perfect, that's right, exactly how it shouldn't be. Okay.
Speaker 1: So in the in the Freedom and Peace Party, he
Speaker 1: garnered forty seven thousand votes, including one from Hunter S. Thompson,
Speaker 1: and he with fellow activist Mark Lane as his running
Speaker 1: mate in some states. Now, the run landed him on
Speaker 1: the famed Master List of Nixon's political opponents. So Nrichard
Speaker 1: Nixon definitely took Now, I wouldn't say took it seriously,
Speaker 1: but you know, these fucking these seventies right winger guys,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. They kind of they kind
Speaker 1: of were like athletes in that way where they just
Speaker 1: like look for any any bit of motivation that they
Speaker 1: can to just spur their evil ship, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So I'm pretty sure Nixon was just like,
Speaker 1: what the running put them on the list? Put right now?
Speaker 1: Do it? Even j Edgar Hoover, like we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: got it on the fun and he was in the
Speaker 1: cross Are so the FBI director who concocted a strange
Speaker 1: and a strange plan to potentially neutralize Dick Gregory with
Speaker 1: the help of the fucking mafia. Yeah, I made contact
Speaker 1: with La Cosa Nostra in order to take down comedian
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory. I misheard you at first, and I was like, Oh, sick,
Speaker 1: did Gregory formed a coalition him with the mafia to
Speaker 1: win the presidency? That's that black Panther ship amazing, But
Speaker 1: it's the opposite, And I'm ashamed that. I'm sad the
Speaker 1: mafia guys are not. There's like, like we're talking about
Speaker 1: like nineteen fifties mafia guys. Like these dudes are like
Speaker 1: literally like three like a step removed from Mussolini on
Speaker 1: some real ship, Like the Niggas is fascist. Don't don't
Speaker 1: let the Godfather movies fool y'all people. The mob was fascist. Um,
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory said, do you realize what you have here?
Speaker 1: This piece of paper has the director of the most
Speaker 1: powerful police agency in the history of the planet proposing
Speaker 1: to contact this mafia so they could do work together.
Speaker 1: It is pretty fucking wild when you think about it,
Speaker 1: Like I know that, I mean on this level, because
Speaker 1: like I mean, you know, it's not the first time
Speaker 1: that the government saw out the mafia's help or even
Speaker 1: got the mafia's help. Um, the mob used to help out,
Speaker 1: I forget exactly how so that's my hymn book kicking in.
Speaker 1: But the mob used to help out on the docks
Speaker 1: in World War two, and like that was like an
Speaker 1: official like connect like sort of thing where they were
Speaker 1: using their connections to help shipments in the docks and
Speaker 1: ship like that. So, I mean, you know, government's teaming
Speaker 1: up with militia movements or like organized crime. That doesn't
Speaker 1: shock me. I think I think as far as like
Speaker 1: just a recounting of his life and times, I think
Speaker 1: we'll stop there we'll well, we'll go in and we'll
Speaker 1: touch some of the more more activism that he did
Speaker 1: as well. He was getting to his uh little health
Speaker 1: revolution in the eighties. But we'll be right back with
Speaker 1: that after the jump. What is your overall sense of
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory now that you I think Dick Gregory did
Speaker 1: it right. Man? If I think about it, if every
Speaker 1: single one of these cats, if every little Pete and
Speaker 1: little Zanne and little you know, barbiturates or whatever got
Speaker 1: out here and made a mill and then was like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die for the struggle for civil rights and
Speaker 1: like brought all their little millions of seventeen ye olds,
Speaker 1: would him marching the streets, marching, you know, occupying city Hall,
Speaker 1: chaining themselves to construction equipment to stop the construction of pipelines.
Speaker 1: That we would have a whole new we would like,
Speaker 1: America would be unrecognizable. We wouldn't have no no medical bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: climate change, nobody we worry about it, be super sick everything.
Speaker 1: Like literally, if every person did a did Gregory, the
Speaker 1: world would be so much better. So the cat you
Speaker 1: remember when we were talking about Fred Hampton and ship,
Speaker 1: It's like these motherfuckers were young back then, you know,
Speaker 1: and like no nobody was saying anything like nobody was
Speaker 1: I don't want to say nobody. I wasn't there. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but it's just like, you know, it didn't
Speaker 1: really seem like people were saying, Man, these kids are
Speaker 1: only twenty, you can't expect them to care about anything,
Speaker 1: like you know what I'm saying, Like that just this
Speaker 1: wasn't a thing like it seemed like there was like
Speaker 1: a higher more expectations for young people back then. And
Speaker 1: maybe that's not Maybe that in itself isn't a good thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe like a lot of these kids, a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of these young people back then had to be
Speaker 1: grown before their time and ship like that. But god
Speaker 1: damn it, it was needed, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And motherfucker's like I was probably probably highly likely I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be talking to y'all right now on this podcast
Speaker 1: if it was some of the work that these cats
Speaker 1: like did Gregory and then we're doing some of the
Speaker 1: sacrifices that they made, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: I appreciate you educating me on him, because you know,
Speaker 1: I like studying uh Liberation movement history to remind myself
Speaker 1: that you know, I'm trying to fit into those shoes
Speaker 1: the best I can and the work that I do,
Speaker 1: and to learn about another ancestor that you know, had
Speaker 1: his own kind of lane and all this work was
Speaker 1: was tight with these brothers like Maga Evers and raising
Speaker 1: issues about like the slings of those three members of Cores.
Speaker 1: You know, it helps me add context and like grounding
Speaker 1: to the work I try to do out here because
Speaker 1: I feel like less lonely, like oh this name was
Speaker 1: comedian and went out there got hos oiled. All this
Speaker 1: ship tussling with the FBI. It's like a sky relief
Speaker 1: to like to to know what kind of fight is
Speaker 1: being carried on and how it can be carried on,
Speaker 1: and that the stuff all folks out here, people like
Speaker 1: No Name who I shout out too much. I wonder
Speaker 1: to come on the show. Um, we should try to
Speaker 1: make that happen. No, she an't coming on the ship.
Speaker 1: We ain't nobody. Hey everybody, Um, I don't know like
Speaker 1: ever and I trying no name on Twitter. Tell her
Speaker 1: I'm her secret best friend. She doesn't know. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be best friends, yepp what we are? Tell her to come,
Speaker 1: but what so, Yes, it's like very encouraging to know
Speaker 1: that who like, you know, to know what kind of
Speaker 1: shoes were are out there to be filmed. I guess
Speaker 1: what kind of thing have to do a little just
Speaker 1: a little speed speed round just to touch on some
Speaker 1: of the other things. And he was into all kinds
Speaker 1: of ship. He was anti apart side activists. Uh, he
Speaker 1: went out was it the Mondiff Stable with Bob Marley,
Speaker 1: Patti La Belle, outspoken feminists. He joined Glorious Steinman, Betty Freeman,
Speaker 1: Bella Abzug, and other suffragists to lead the National Ego
Speaker 1: Rights Amendment March and Ratification Extension. You know, they still
Speaker 1: haven't ratified the r A and enough states to be
Speaker 1: making an actual constitutional amendment. Oh no, to this day,
Speaker 1: let's just shot the sparksment down in night. They still
Speaker 1: because not enough states though, like oh well, ratifying equal
Speaker 1: rights for women will like destroy the nuclear family, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not fitting you, and like at this point in time,
Speaker 1: most people have thought, I mean not fought. Most people
Speaker 1: have given up on the fight because it's like fucking
Speaker 1: forty years ago. But yeah, I know the r A
Speaker 1: hasn't even been ratified and enough state legislatures to actually
Speaker 1: be in the United States constitutional Amendment Equal Rights and
Speaker 1: Women is not is like literally people for decades have
Speaker 1: refused to codify it as in the Constitution. Yeah, damn,
Speaker 1: that's do a lot of people know that. I don't
Speaker 1: think enough people know that. I didn't. I did not
Speaker 1: know that til you just said it. Well. I also
Speaker 1: feel like feminism has moved beyond like um, like you know,
Speaker 1: like the Constitution itself is like a very flawed document
Speaker 1: and shit, and like there's other ways to enact like
Speaker 1: equal rights than just like putting in the Constitution. I
Speaker 1: guess people are more focused on struggles like the struggle
Speaker 1: for abortion rights, like concretely, other than putting the e
Speaker 1: r A in there and then you've got the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court saying, well it don'tly meaning like that, and like
Speaker 1: going and striking down road b way to anyway, like
Speaker 1: people were just focused on that ship. People are focused
Speaker 1: on getting equal pay for equal work, just concretely, rather
Speaker 1: than this kind of abstract idea of like the Equal
Speaker 1: Rights Amendment. I think it's where the struggle has gone
Speaker 1: since then. Um yeah, stuff like that. So I mean
Speaker 1: it's wild though that now like equal rights for women,
Speaker 1: like people have tried to get in the Constitution for
Speaker 1: four decades, five decades, and it's the now. Well, um
Speaker 1: oh yeah, he touched on Native American rights issues. Nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, Gregory and his wife were arrested for legal
Speaker 1: net fishing alongside the Nisqually people in Washington State and
Speaker 1: a protest fishing pollution. Two thousand eight, Gregory stated that
Speaker 1: he believes the air pollution in international water contamination with
Speaker 1: heavy metals such as lead and possibly magnesium or magnees
Speaker 1: maybe used against Black Americans, especially in urban neighborhoods. Um,
Speaker 1: we gotta do a whole nother We got another episodes
Speaker 1: on environmental right, you know you heard about that. Did
Speaker 1: you ever hear about that study where they we're studying
Speaker 1: like the rise of violent crime and lead in poisoning? Yeah,
Speaker 1: connection we all got sh Baltimore, Detroit, Yeah we should.
Speaker 1: Environmental racism is a really interesting issue in the ways
Speaker 1: that I'm starting to content I'm starting to like increasingly
Speaker 1: look at public safety issues to the lens of public health,
Speaker 1: Like because you know, if somebody gets shot, they gotta
Speaker 1: go hospital. That's a help issue. Somebody has prama because
Speaker 1: their house got shot up. Now they've got mental health problems.
Speaker 1: Now they're like smoking crack because they're threat out as
Speaker 1: a public health issue. And so like environmental like racism
Speaker 1: in the way that it affects public health, which then
Speaker 1: affect issues of violence and public safety, is a very
Speaker 1: interesting topic that we absolutely will come back to in
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the last year ever negotiated for the
Speaker 1: hostages in the Iran hostage crisis in nine what excuse me?
Speaker 1: He also did some hunger strikes for that um and
Speaker 1: then that brings us into I guess I don't want
Speaker 1: to say like what he's most known for, because like
Speaker 1: there is a whole generation. There's like a generation. There's
Speaker 1: like the generation that we would probably refer to as
Speaker 1: boomers probably know Dick Gregory Moore for being a civil
Speaker 1: rights activist and a comedian. But I guess I would say,
Speaker 1: like my dad's generation and my mom's generation, they more
Speaker 1: like he that's Dick. That's when the Dick Gregory health
Speaker 1: ship was like the boot. So in nineteen eighty four
Speaker 1: he founded the Health Enterprise, Incorporated, a company that distributed
Speaker 1: weight loss products. With this company, Gregory made efforts to
Speaker 1: improve the life expectancy of African Americans, which he believed
Speaker 1: was being hindered by poor nutrition and drugs and alcohol abuse.
Speaker 1: Night five, Gregory introduced the slim Safe Bohemian diet. Have
Speaker 1: you heard of that? You know, what is that? Well?
Speaker 1: That was the thing. It's like this concoction that the
Speaker 1: breather made of like a bunch of viterterans and minerals
Speaker 1: and herbal stuff, all of that ship. And then he
Speaker 1: teamed together with like an actual scientist Nigga who like,
Speaker 1: you know, refined the formula ship and they made like
Speaker 1: a weight loss dietary like like pretty much like a
Speaker 1: fucking smoothie type. Before that was the ship, before that
Speaker 1: was a thing, and he made that it was multiple dimensional.
Speaker 1: He would end up selling that company for thirty million
Speaker 1: dollars and stuff like that. But it was like, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, that whole thing was revolutionary. I mean it
Speaker 1: got to the point where you know, like he had
Speaker 1: like a hotline where people were calling him to help
Speaker 1: help them lose weight. There's one famous story of a
Speaker 1: gentleman who was a thousand pounds. Let me see if
Speaker 1: I can find his name, and are you well, I
Speaker 1: mean sorry, but yeah, yeah, um, what is the name
Speaker 1: of this guy, Mick Mickey, that's that s title Mickey style.
Speaker 1: So this dude was more bilioed beasts, Like he tripped
Speaker 1: and fell in his apartment and ended up getting stuck
Speaker 1: in a doorway and it took like five rescue workers
Speaker 1: to cut him out and ship like that, and it
Speaker 1: was this whole big story in the eighties and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And famously Dick Gregory helped this guy lose
Speaker 1: like four hundred pounds or something like that. He eventually,
Speaker 1: obviously from the from being that large, he would die
Speaker 1: I think like two years later, but it was a
Speaker 1: huge press story about how Dick Gregor was trying to
Speaker 1: help this guy, and so I was more stuff that
Speaker 1: put him on the map. As Dick Gregory got older,
Speaker 1: you know, the I guess, like the suave, smooth, devonier
Speaker 1: aspects of his his public personality started to kind of fade,
Speaker 1: just as you know, naturally like people get older. He
Speaker 1: started getting, um, your very very early signs of Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, so he started becoming more angry
Speaker 1: and like like if you you can there's like a
Speaker 1: whole there's a whole ton of interviews that you can
Speaker 1: watch with white haired old Dick Gregory just being like
Speaker 1: angry old black man, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: at this point, at this point, you know, figuratively speaking,
Speaker 1: he had fuck you money. So he he used this
Speaker 1: aspect of his career to get back into comedy. So
Speaker 1: like you know, like before before Dick Gray group Gregory
Speaker 1: went out like in the you know, the two thousand fifteens,
Speaker 1: sixteen seventeens, he was back on the stand up circuit
Speaker 1: doing doing Ship and like I mean, the material that
Speaker 1: he was doing was literally I'm old, I'm black, and
Speaker 1: I've been around to see all of it. Y'all gonna
Speaker 1: sit here and listen to what the funk I have
Speaker 1: to say. It's funny. Ship that reminds me so much
Speaker 1: of when I met John Carlos. If you don't recall,
Speaker 1: is the Olympic um athlete. I think he's a runner
Speaker 1: that you know, he held us fist up and the
Speaker 1: end he accepted his his his medal at the at
Speaker 1: the Olympics um and that like he so we were
Speaker 1: to schedule to give talks and I think it was
Speaker 1: a University of New Mexico, and so I was nervous
Speaker 1: in my first talk at university that flew me out
Speaker 1: to New Mexico and my oh ship, this big, big ship.
Speaker 1: I wrote my whole thing down. I was like, all nervous,
Speaker 1: I get up there and get my old speech, and
Speaker 1: then this thing comes up after me and talks to
Speaker 1: like forty five minutes about like bitches and like like
Speaker 1: literally bitches, and I'm not even sure. It's like in
Speaker 1: there's a banquet hall full of like full of all
Speaker 1: the administrators and faculty and ship. So I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: one time myself, this bitch getting fucking personal. It was crazy. Anyway,
Speaker 1: while am I talking about so, I mean it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, getting old seems cool. I mean if I
Speaker 1: get to get old, that'd be dope, because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm never I'm not sure sometimes um but yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. That makes sense. So immediately she had
Speaker 1: the outlet that it could be channeled into something that
Speaker 1: everybody could share it. There's them. There is a twenty
Speaker 1: twenty documentary on Dick Gregory. Let me get the name
Speaker 1: for you for you all. The actually film is called
Speaker 1: The One and Only Dick Gregory. You guys should check
Speaker 1: that out. I watched it in preparation for this, But
Speaker 1: there is like a really really funny scene where, you know,
Speaker 1: throughout the throughout the documentary, you know, you obviously have
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who knew him commenting, you know,
Speaker 1: as they're telling the story of his life, right, and
Speaker 1: Kevin Hart and Chris Rock and who is the third, motherfucker?
Speaker 1: Who's the third? I can't remember, I can't remember, but
Speaker 1: you know one of those comedian dudes, right, they're, they're, they're,
Speaker 1: they're appearing throughout the documentary. But then it gets to
Speaker 1: the point where they start talking about when you know,
Speaker 1: he got older and started getting more angry and the
Speaker 1: alzheimers started kicking in, he started doing more comedy shows.
Speaker 1: And that ship is funny because when you hear Kevin
Speaker 1: Hart and these guys talking about just interacting with the
Speaker 1: Gregory at that stage in his life, just having him like,
Speaker 1: you know, he would just he would just get you,
Speaker 1: just sit you down and be like, what is it,
Speaker 1: you little motherfucker? I want you to understand it. This
Speaker 1: j ain't is easier, you young motherfucker. You mother like
Speaker 1: like that was just this whole thing, amazing, amazing, amazing.
Speaker 1: L P did Gregory. Mr Claxton, I appreciate learning about
Speaker 1: you today. I hope you rested well with the ancestors.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your inspiration, will carry your fight forward to struggle.
Speaker 1: Right thing over is the Jews Revolution? No, no, not
Speaker 1: at all, Um, We've got no music angle for this episode,
Speaker 1: but I did just want to telling you what Dick
Speaker 1: Gregory stops on hip hop wark. Right. So, Dick Gregory
Speaker 1: was I don't want to say he was a hip
Speaker 1: hop advocate, but he was very, very vehemently against making
Speaker 1: hip hop responsible for the world's problems, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Like he he was, he was. He was
Speaker 1: one of those cats who was like man the blues
Speaker 1: music that I was listening to when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: They were saying the same ship that hip hop casts
Speaker 1: are saying, like the same same exact type of ship.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't make any sense for us to try
Speaker 1: to act like hip hop is like, you know, for
Speaker 1: for prude, prude people or whatever whatever he's like. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense for people to act like what
Speaker 1: hip hop is bringing to the table is something new
Speaker 1: or something that's so like uniquely new and vulgar that
Speaker 1: we've never seen it before because he's like hip hop
Speaker 1: never invented any cuss word. You know. That's a beautiful metaphor,
Speaker 1: like the like hip hop didn't invent any cussboard, Like
Speaker 1: hip hop didn't invent any of the ship it talks about.
Speaker 1: It just inherited it from capitalism in the streets. Um.
Speaker 1: It may now be a perpetual cycle of people hearing
Speaker 1: the music and then going out and doing the ship
Speaker 1: that thinks cool. Those little peeps at it or whatever,
Speaker 1: little people dead to bring it up like I just
Speaker 1: saw him hating on him and he's dead man, that's
Speaker 1: not cool. I'm sorry. It's rap music right now, you
Speaker 1: ain't ready well, speaking of rap music, I feel like
Speaker 1: rapping because that is it for this episode. We are done,
Speaker 1: so Sun. We will see y'all next week. But you
Speaker 1: know we you know, we we gotta hit you with
Speaker 1: the bars before we close it off. Right, check us
Speaker 1: on out. Joe hey, yo, let me talk you about
Speaker 1: with nicker name Clacton part term comedian and the civil
Speaker 1: rights actors. I'd thought to know him, but you didn't
Speaker 1: know be half of it. Back in university he was
Speaker 1: want to track a yip. But after this hawd everybody
Speaker 1: get from the laughter in the commedy clubs from here
Speaker 1: to over. The Africa never started to wait from talking
Speaker 1: about his braces, even though they try to silence him
Speaker 1: and put him in a casket after I was after
Speaker 1: how does Robin mega? But suddenly he endeavor trying to
Speaker 1: make everything better. Today we still remember as many contributions
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory are we spoke to yo. I'm gonna rock
Speaker 1: the ship freshly and make it a bit sketchy and
Speaker 1: I like him. Thick, ease up on that. Dick Gregory.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Dick, Yeah, he's seeming legit and he even
Speaker 1: dropping knowledge when he's speaking to kids. But Mafia and
Speaker 1: the feeds, they were thinking a hit because he said
Speaker 1: fun Vietnam. He don't think that it's hip. We're talking
Speaker 1: about a lifetime as rare as a fucking thunder strike.
Speaker 1: He was fighting fascists who were trying to plunder rights
Speaker 1: the ships wild than It even made me wonder like
Speaker 1: how does nigga even have the strength to do a
Speaker 1: hunger strike? So if you wonder how they did in
Speaker 1: the days, whether it's integration or a minimum ways, just
Speaker 1: salut Dick Gregory's the motherfuck truth on. My name is
Speaker 1: Dope Knight and y'all have been listening to Waiting on
Speaker 1: Reparations and hopefully you're waiting on them too. It we
Speaker 1: all waiting on them. We don't get them down. Thank
Speaker 1: you guys for rocket See you next week. Hey. Waiting
Speaker 1: on Reparations is the production of I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, check out the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcast m