Dick Gregory and Hugh Hefner at the 2011 Los Angeles Press Club. Dick Gregory said that it was Hugh Hefner, Founder of the Playboy Club, who gave him the $30,000 to to force the FBI to search for the bodies of the three civil rights workers slain in Mississippi during Freedom Summer. He also said that it was Hugh Hefner who gave him the opportunity to leave the Chitlin circuit by hiring him to perform in first class arenas. Photo by Gloria Zuurveen
Dick Gregory speaking at rally in Inglewood after Donovan Jackson was beaten by police in 2002. Martin Luther King III was in attendance at the rally. Photo by Gloria Zuurveen
Nigger: An Autobiography by Dick Gregory, September 1964 The autobiography of comedian and social activist Dick Gregory, co-authored with Robert Lipsyte, nigger was originally published in September 1964 by E. P. Dutton, and has since 1965 been reprinted numerous times in an edition available through Pocket Books, altogether selling more than one million copies to date.[1] The book has never been out of print since its publication.[2] Gregory continued his life story in two subsequent books, Up From Nigger and Callus On My Soul. Gregory earned a $200,000 advance from the book.[3]
Wise man, funny, and dedicated to the people