The Color of Funny: Dick Gregory on Race, Comedy, and Justice

The Color of Funny: Dick Gregory on Race, Comedy, and Justice
Photo by Mike Boehmer CHF/file
The Color of Funny: Dick Gregory on Race, Comedy, and Justice
Photo by Mike Boehmer CHF/file

The Color of Funny: Dick Gregory on Race, Comedy, and Justice

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It’s hard to predict whether Dick Gregory will be most celebrated as a path-breaking comedian or a trailblazing civil rights activist. It’s impossible to imagine the history of either movement without him - or without the unique way he managed to blend the two. In the early 1960s, he became one of the first black comedians to perform before integrated audiences. In 1967, he ran for mayor of Chicago against Richard J. Daley, and a year later for president as the Freedom and Peace Party candidate.

The editor of African American Humor: The Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today, Gregory is still a staunch, wry political voice across a range of issues as varied as nutrition, social justice, and the environment. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington interviews the provocative and always unpredictable Gregory.

Recorded Sunday, November 08, 2009 at Northwestern University School of Law-Thorne Auditorium.