By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Contributor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Legendary civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory died on Saturday (Aug 19).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was 84.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friends, family and celebrities took to social media to honor the icon and innovator of the Black community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is with enormous sadness that the Gregory family confirms that their father, comedic legend and civil rights activist Mr. Dick Gregory departed this earth tonight in Washington, D.C.,\u201d said Christian Gregory, his son, in a statement posted on Facebook. \u201cThe family appreciates the outpouring of support and love and respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Facebook, Roland Martin, a journalist and host of \u201cNewsOne\u201d on TV One said he had enormous respect for Gregory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe was honest, truthful, unflinching, unapologetically Black. He challenged America at every turn. RIP,\u201d wrote Martin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe was one of the sweetest, smartest, most loving people one could ever know,\u201d said Steve Jaffe, Gregory\u2019s publicist of 50 years, according to The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>. Jaffe added, \u201cI just hope that God is ready for some outrageously funny times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Singer John Legend tweeted, \u201cDick Gregory lived an amazing, revolutionary life. A groundbreaker in comedy and a voice for justice. RIP.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Filmmaker Ava DuVernay tweeted that Gregory, \u201ctaught us and loved us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, also paid homage to Gregory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe salute and honor the living legacy of freedom fighter Dick Gregory. RIP,\u201d wrote Chavis on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory had been in a Washington, D.C.-area hospital battling an undisclosed illness. However, as late as Thursday, family members were said to have been upbeat about his recovery and he even had plans to appear at a show on Saturday in the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Born Richard Claxton \u201cDick\u201d Gregory in St. Louis on Oct. 12, 1932, Gregory became a comedian and civil rights activist whose social satire changed the way whites perceived African-American comedians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory entered the national comedy scene in 1961 when Chicago\u2019s Playboy Club (as a direct request from publisher Hugh Hefner) booked him as a replacement for white comedian, \u201cProfessor\u201d Irwin Corey. Until then Gregory had worked mostly at small clubs with predominantly Black audiences (he met his wife, Lillian Smith, at one such club).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSuch clubs paid comedians an average of five dollars per night; thus Gregory also held a day job as a postal employee. His tenure as a replacement for Corey was so successful \u2013 at one performance he won over an audience that included southern White convention goers \u2013 that the Playboy Club offered him a contract extension from several weeks to three years,\u201d reads Gregory\u2019s biography. \u201cBy 1962, Gregory had become a nationally known headline performer, selling out nightclubs, making numerous national television appearances, and recording popular comedy albums.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While a student at Sumner High School in St. Louis he led a march protesting segregated schools. Later, inspired by the work of leaders such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Gregory took part in the Civil Rights Movement and used his celebrity status to draw attention to such issues as segregation and disfranchisement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen local Mississippi governments stopped distributing Federal food surpluses to poor Blacks in areas where SNCC was encouraging voter registration, Gregory chartered a plane to bring in several tons of food,\u201d reads his biography. \u201cHe participated in SNCC\u2019s voter registration drives and in sit-ins to protest segregation, most notably at a restaurant franchise in downtown Atlanta. Only later did Gregory disclose that he held stock in the chain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory\u2019s autobiography, \u201cNigger,\u201d was published in 1963 and it became the number one best-selling book in America. Over the decades it has sold in excess of seven million copies. He explained his choice for the title in the foreword of the book, where Dick Gregory wrote a note to his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhenever you hear the word \u2018Nigger\u2019 you\u2019ll know their advertising my book,\u201d wrote Gregory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the 1960s, Gregory spent more time on social issues and less time on performing, his biography noted. He participated in marches and parades to support a range of causes, including opposition to the Vietnam War, world hunger and drug abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dorothy Leavell, chairman of the NNPA and publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group said this was a sad moment and a great loss to America, especially Black America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDick Gregory was a personal friend, but also a voice for Black America, which has now been stilled,\u201d said Leavell. \u201cDick was also a close friend to the Black Press and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). While we mourn this loss we are grateful for the many contributions he made that have helped us all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chavis agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDick Gregory epitomized the rare combination of being an intellectual genius and one of our greatest social visionaries,\u201d said Chavis. \u201cThe National Newspapers Publishers Association deeply mourns the passing of freedom fighter Dick Gregory.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Contributor Legendary civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory died on Saturday (Aug 19). He was 84. Friends, family and celebrities took to social media to honor the icon and innovator of the Black community. \u201cIt is with enormous sadness that the Gregory family confirms that their father, comedic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1585,1584,695],"class_list":["post-2534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-civil-rights-activist","tag-dick-gregory","tag-roland-martin","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2535,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions\/2535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}