Dick Gregory Quotes

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' "I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.

No kid in the world, no woman in the world should ever raise a hand against a no-good daddy. That's already been taken care of: A Man Who Destroys His Own Home Shall Inherit the Wind.

I never learned hate at home or shame. I had to go to school for that.

If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they'd have to bring out the tanks to control you.

The only good thing about the good old days is they're gone.

Dear Momma―Wherever you are, if ever you hear the word "nigger" again, remember they are advertising my book.

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten.

I was learning that just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.

Momma, a welfare cheater. A criminal who couldn't stand to se her kids go hungry, or grow up in slumbs and end up mugging people in dar corners. I guess the system didn't want her to get off relief, the way it kept sending social workers around to be sure Momma wasn't trying to make things better.

I personally believe breathatarianism to be the highest mode of human living [...] breathing in pure air, absorbing the direct light and energies of the sun, bathing in pure water [...] I look at the obituaries every morning and ain't nobody listed but you eaters.

Makes you wonder. When I left St. Louis, I was making five dollars a night. Now I'm getting $5,000 a week — for saying the same things out loud I used to say under my breath.

Every door of racial prejudice I can kick down, is one less door that my children have to kick down.

They told me there was very little racial prejudice in Hawaii. Like a woman is just a little bit pregnant.

I haven’t used my dick in so long I wouldn’t know where to find it. I sent it out for a pack of Camels in 1979 and it never came back.

Last time I was down South, I walked into this restaurant. This white waitress came up to me and said, 'We don't serve colored people here.' I said, 'That's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.' About that time, these three cousins came in. You know the ones I mean, Ku, Klux and Klan. They said, 'Boy, we're givin' you fair warnin. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you.' "So I put down my knife and fork, picked up that chicken, and kissed it.

When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It’s not good enough, but it helps. But I got tired of hearing Momma say, God, fix it so I can pay the rent; God, fix it so the lights will be turned on; God, fix it so the pot is full. I kind of felt it really wasn’t His job.

What I’ve come to learn in my long life is that ignorance is not bliss; it is time consuming and costly as hell.

Even though he understood the depths of racism and black oppression, Ali lived his life as a free man—a free loving and lovable man.

When you shoot right and truth and justice down, the more right and truth and justice will rise up.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss. Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together. For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us. We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers. And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off. I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them. I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it." There's a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." Thank you.

Can you imagine what this old Negro had to go through? Can you imagine the day a Negro woman went to a black man and said: “Honey, I’m pregnant,” and both of them fell on their knees and prayed that their baby would be born deformed? Can you imagine what this Negro went through, hoping his baby is born crippled? Because if he was born crippled, he would have less chance of being a slave and more chance of having freedom.

Home was a place to be only when all other places were closed.

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten. — Dick Gregory

I am so sick and tired of seeing a black person shot in the back, shot dead, followed by people saying, “Not all cops are bad.” You know how many lawyers get disbarred every year? But you never hear, “Not all lawyers are bad.” You know how many doctors lose their medical licenses? But you never hear anybody talking about, “Not all doctors are bad.” Police departments are filthy. If I pay a lawyer, I don’t expect him to sue me. If I go to a doctor, he’s not supposed to give me a disease. But we pay taxes so cops will protect us, and they shoot us instead—and the response is, “Not all cops are bad”? And still we think we’re part of America.

We have problems all over the world today, because men cease to be individuals. We like to identify with everything other than ourselves. We like to identify with groups, races, religions, you hear it every day. 'I'm Italian! I'm German! I'm Negro! I'm Jewish!' So what? Do you realize that when you identify with anything other than yourself, first as an individual, you have a cheap way out a lot of your own shortcomings?

Because I'm a civil rights activist, I am also an animal rights activist. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and vicious taking of life. We shouldn't be a part of it

The fact and wisdom of nonviolence may be beyond dispute-the civil rights movement profoundly transformed the country. Yet the movement demanded of African Americans a superhuman capacity for forgiveness. Dick Gregory summed up the dilemma well. "I committed to nonviolence," Marable quotes him as saying. "But I'm sort of embarrassed by it.

I guess that makes me as white as you now, boy. I got your spit inside me.

There is something about a woman,' said comedian and activist Dick Gregory. “If you look at all the suffering that black folks went through, not one black man would dare to sing ‘Mississippi Goddamn.’ Not one black man would say what Billie Holiday did about being lynched [in “Strange Fruit”]-they wasn’t lynching women, they was lynching men, but it was women that talked about it, and nobody told them to talk about it. No manager going to tell you to talk about this, it’s just something inside them.

I told them, if you carry fifty pounds on your back and don’t weaken, you strengthen your back to carry a hundred, and then a thousand, and if that doesn’t break you, some day you’ll be able to carry the world. And walk with it. That’s how strong I feel.

Did you know that in New Orleans they still have brown bag parties? What’s that, you ask? You and I go to a party, and when we get to the door, there’s a brown bag hanging down from the ceiling, and if our skin is darker than the brown bag, we can’t go in.

It was on Thanksgiving Day a number of years ago… I got to thinking that there might be some beings on another planet somewhere who are as intelligent compared with us as we are compared with turkeys. Then I had visions of these beings from another planet going to the butcher shop with their meat list. I wonder what they'd call their butcher shops? They'd probably call them "folks shops." I could hear them placing an order: "Give me a half dozen Oriental knees, two Caucasian feet and twelve fresh Black lips." And the folks-shopkeeper comes back smiling and says, "These Black lips are so fresh they're still talkin'.

And then the foreman told another boss to put me down in the furnace pit. "Nigger can take the heat better," he said. Well, the system wasn't going to beat me. I stood up next to that furnace, and I ate their goddamned salt tablets and just refused to pass out. They weren't going to make me quit, and I wasn't going to give them cause to fire me. I'd lean into that blazing pit until my face would sting, and when the lunch whistle blew I'd fall on the floor and vomit blood for half an hour and I'd clean it up myself.

But what’s worse than that is the slaves who identified with their masters, as if the slaves’ value as human beings depended on what the masters were like. What they were like was evil! They were called “masters” because they owned human beings! And we slaves were ready to fight each other over which of the lowdown filthy dogs who owned us was the best! But it wasn’t the slaves’ fault. Like Douglass wrote, slaves are like other people. When you think about it, it’s a wonder more black folks didn’t fight with one another instead of fighting against the white man the way Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, David Walker, and a whole lot of others did. While you’re busy shaking your head thinking they were stupid, ask yourself this: are we any better today? Black people put on the uniform of the U.S. military, our masters, and go to Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and anywhere else Uncle Sam tells us to go, and fight and kill yellow-skinned folks and brown-skinned folks on behalf of the United States, our masters—just like slaves fighting other slaves. Meanwhile, back home, one out of every half-dozen blacks is locked up for committing the same drug crimes as white dudes who walk around free. What’s wrong with that picture? Then you’ve got blacks in police uniforms out there arresting other innocent blacks. Blacks in America really need to study the Jews in Germany. Those Jews never thought they were part of Hitler’s system, most of them never sided with the people oppressing them. We do. We go to war. What kind of abomination is that? How many blacks go to war because we can’t find a job, and are willing to kill or be killed just so we can feed ourselves and our families? But remember, our already-free Maroon ancestors risked all of that just to free others. Getting back to Frederick Douglass, it’s like he said: Slaves are like other people. Too many of us have that slave mentality. It can take a lot to get past that, but a lot of us have, and Frederick Douglass was one.

remember I said that ignorance is not bliss, and can be very costly. Did you know that 98 percent of the children who drown in the summertime are black? Why? Because historically we weren’t allowed in swimming pools because of Jim Crow. That law put a bad taste in black folks’ mouths, and to this day I don’t know how to swim. On my family’s farm, there was a lake a thousand feet deep. I told my wife, if one of our kids starts to drown, you go get him. I’m not going in the water. I can’t swim. I’m not going to play like I’m swimming. And when I was home, and the kids were out in the water playing, I would leave the house. I didn’t even want to hear them call my name when they were near the water.

I met him in the hospital.' I saw the eyebrow raise in my peripheral vision. 'Yeah, that hospital. He believes that powerful telepaths are secretly in charge of the planet, and that they're possessing people for their own entertainment.' 'Powerful telepaths...' Lew said. 'Slan,' I said. Lew burst out laughing. 'You mean you didn't know that Slan was nonfiction?' I said. 'Bertrum belongs to an organization that believes that Van Vogt intentionally--' 'What did you say--Van Vaht? It's Van Voh.' 'No, it's not. You've gotta pronounce the T at least.' 'What, Van Vote? Don't be an idiot. I bet you still say Submareener.' 'My point--,' I said. 'And Mag-net-o.' '--is that Bertrum thinks Van Voggatuh used fiction to cloak the truth.' 'As opposed to say, your friend, P.K. Dick, and Whitley Strieber, and--' 'Streeber.' 'And L. Ron Hubbard, who just made shit up and said it was the truth.' 'Exactly.' Lew nodded. 'I find your ideas intriguing and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. What's the name of this fine organization?' 'It gets better,' I said. "The Human League." 'No way.' 'I'm not sure they realized the name was taken.' 'My god, Lew said. 'It's the perfect cover for an elite fighting force -- an eighties New Wave band! This is so Buckaroo Banzai.

For years they told us where to sit, where to eat, and where to live. Now they want to dictate our bedroom habits. First the white man tells me to sit in the back of the bus. Now it looks like he wants me to sleep under the bed. Back in the days of slavery, black folks couldn't grow kids fast enough for white folks to harvest. Now that we've got a little taste of power, white folks want us to call a moratorium on having children.

I've had white people tell me: 'love it or leave it.' I'm not gonna leave America until she's straightened out, and I'm not gonna love her until she lovable again. Then I'm getting the fuck out of here.

There used to be a regular poker game at Barbara Sinatra’s house in Malibu, and a great group of people showed up, including Jack Lemmon, Larry Gelbart, and Gregory Peck, who wore a little green visor like an old-time gambler. Everyone was about the same age, in their late sixties or seventies. I took my longtime companion, Michelle Triola, there because she loved to play poker. One night, back when I was doing Diagnosis Murder, I let her off and told the gang I was going back home. “I’m the only one here who doesn’t play poker,” I said. “You’re the only one here who’s working,” said Gregory Peck.

Survey Graphic,

By the night of my encounter with Dick Gregory the goal of the civil rights movement had escalated from a simple demand for equal rights to a demand for the redistribution of responsibility for black advancement from black to white America, from the “victims” to the “guilty.” This marked a profound—and I believe tragic—turning point in the long struggle of black Americans for a better life.