BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:iCalendar-Ruby BEGIN:VEVENT LOCATION:Le Poisson Rouge\n\n\nNew York\, NY 10012 SEQUENCE:0 CLASS:PUBLIC DTEND:20081010T213000 URL:http://culturemob.com/events/144705-dick-gregory-plus-martha-redbone-ny -new-york-manhattan-soho-10012-le-poisson-rouge?s=ical DTSTART:20081010T193000 UID:November 07\, 2009 23:03:19_704757189@diamond.culturemob.com DTSTAMP:20091107T230319 DESCRIPTION:Gregory\, Richard Claxton Dick (Born\, October 12\, 1932\, St. Louis\, Mo.)\, African American comedian and civil rights activist whose so cial satire changed the way white Americans perceived African American come dians since he first performed in public.Dick Gregory entered the national comedy scene in 1961 when Chicagos Playboy Club (as a direct request from p ublisher Hugh Hefner) booked him as a replacement for white comedian\, Prof essor Irwin Corey. Until then Gregory had worked mostly at small clubs with predominantly black audiences (he met his wife\, Lillian Smith\, at one su ch club). Such 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 repl acement for Corey was so successful at one performance he won over an audi ence that included southern white convention goers that the Playboy Club o ffered him a contract extension from several weeks to three years. By 1962 Gregory had become a nationally known headline performer\, selling out nigh tclubs\, making numerous national television appearances\, and recording po pular comedy albums.Its important to note that no biography of Gregory woul d be complete without mentioning that he and his beloved wife\, Lil\, had t en kids who have become highly respected members of the national community in a variety of fields. They are: Michele\, Lynne\, Pamela\, Paula\, Stepha nie (aka Xenobia)\, Gregory\, Christian\, Miss\, Ayanna and Yohance. The Gr egorys had one child who died at birth but they have shared 42 years of his toric moments\, selfless dedication and tremendous personal love.Gregory be gan performing comedy in the mid-1950s while serving in the army.(See Black sin the Military). Drafted in 1954 while attending Southern Illinois Unive rsity at Carbondale on a track scholarship\, Gregory briefly returned to th e university after his discharge in 1956\, but left without a degree becaus e he felt that the university didn't want me to study\, they wanted me to r un. In the hopes of performing comedy professionally\, he moved to Chicago\ , where he became part of a new generation of black comedians that included Nipsey Russell\, Bill Cosby\, and Godfrey Cambridge. These comedians broke with the minstrel tradition\, which presented stereotypical black characte rs. Gregory\, whose style was detached\, ironic\, and satirical\, came to b e called the Black Mort Sahl after the popular white social satirist. Frien ds of Gregory have always referred to Mort Sahl as the White Dick Gregory. Gregory drew on current events\, especially the racial issues\, for much of his material: Segregation is not all bad. Have you ever heard of a collisi on where the people in the back of the bus got hurt? From an early age\, Gr egory demonstrated a strong sense of social justice. While a student at Sum ner High School in St. Louis he led a March protesting Segregated schools. Later\, inspired by the work of leaders such as 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 celebri ty status to draw attention to such issues as segregation and disfranchisem ent. When local Mississippi governments stopped distributing Federal food s urpluses to poor blacks in areas where SNCC was encouraging voter registrat ion\, Gregory chartered a plane to bring in several tons of food. He partic ipated in SNCC's voter registration drives and in sit-ins to protest segreg ation\, most notably at a restaurant franchise in downtown Atlanta\, Georgi a. Only later did Gregory disclose that he held stock in the chain.Gregorys autobiography\, Nigger\, was published in 1963 prior to The assassination of President Kennedy\, and became the number one best-selling book in Ameri ca. Over the decades it has sold in excess of seven million copies. His cho ice for the title was explained in the forward\, where Dick Gregory wrote a note to his mother. Whenever you hear the word Nigger\, he said\, youll kn ow their advertising my book.Through the 1960s\, Gregory spent more time on social issues and less time on performing. He participated in marches and parades to support a range of causes\, including opposition to the Vietnam War\, world hunger\, and drug abuse. In addition\, Gregory fasted in protes t more than 60 times\, once in Iran\, where he fasted and prayed in an effo rt to urge the Ayatollah Khomeini to release American embassy staff who had been taken hostage. The Iranian refusal to release the hostages did not de crease the depth of Gregory's commitment\; he weighed only 97 lbs when he l eft Iran.Gregory demonstrated his commitment to confronting the entrenched political powers by opposing Richard J. Daley in Chicago's 1966 mayoral ele ction. He ran for president in 1968 as a write-in candidate for the Freedom and Peace Party\, a splinter group of the Peace and Freedom Party and rece ived 1.5 million votes. Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey lost the elect ion to Republican Richard Nixon by 510\,000 votes\, and many believe Humphr ey would have won had Gregory not run. After the assassinations of King\, P resident John F. Kennedy\, and Robert Kennedy\, Gregory became increasingly convinced of the existence of political conspiracies. Gregory wrote books such as Code Name Zorro: The Murder of Martin Luther King Jr. (1971) with M ark Lane\, world famous author\, attorney and documentary filmmaker\, whose findings published in the best-selling 1966 book Rush To Judgment Gregory credited with reversing the nations opinion on who assassinated the preside nt and the facts which contradicted the official government version contain ed in the Warren Report. Lanes book contained answers and facts\, which Gre gory has espoused in Numerous lectures from then until now. Lane and Gregor y have been best friends\, co-authors and have lectured together for over 4 0 years and both livein Washington D.C. Gregory and Lanes book on the assas sination of Dr. King was recently released under another title\, Murder In Memphis\, as a trade paperback.Gregory's activism continued into the 1990s. In response to published allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had supplied cocaine to predominantly African American areas in Los A ngeles\, thus spurring the crack epidemic\, Gregory protested at CIA headqu arters and was arrested. In 1992 he began a program called Campaign for Hum an Dignity to fight crime in St. Louis neighborhoods.In 1973\, the year he released his comedy album Caught in the Act\, Gregory moved with his family to Plymouth\, Massachusetts\, where he developed an interest in vegetarian ism and became a nutritional consultant. In 1984 he founded Health Enterpri ses\, Inc.\, a company that distributed weight loss products. In 1987 Grego ry introduced the Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet\, a powdered diet mix\, which was immensely profitable. Economic losses caused in part by conflicts with his business partners led to his eviction from his home in 1992. Gregory remai ned active\, however\, and in 1996 returned to the stage in his critically acclaimed one-man show\, Dick Gregory Live! The reviews of Gregorys show co mpared him to the greatest stand-ups in the history of Broadway.In 1998 Gre gory spoke at the celebration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King\, J r. and President Clinton were in attendance. Not long after that\, the Pres ident told Gregorys long-time friend and PR. Consultant\, Steve Jaffe\, I l ove Dick Gregory\, he is one of the funniest people on the planet. They spo ke of how Gregory had made a comment on Dr. Kings birthday that broke every one into laughter\, when he noted that the President made Speaker Newt Ging rich ride in the back of the plane\, on an Air Force One trip overseas. In 2001\, Gregory announced to the world that he had been diagnosed with a rar e form of Cancer. He refused traditional medical treatment chemotherapy an d with the assistance of some of the finest minds in alternative medicine\, put together a regimen of a variety of diet\, vitamins\, exercise\, and mo dern devices not even known to the public\, which ultimately resulted in hi s reversing the trend of the Cancer to the point where today he is nearly 8 5% free of it\, and getting better every day.Gregorys going public with his diagnosis has helped millions of his fans around the world to understand w hat Cancer specialists have been trying to explain for decades\, which is t hat Cancer is curable. Gregory was honored recently at the Kennedy Center i n Washington D.C.\, by a sold out house and a tribute hosted by Bill Cosby\ , with special tributes by Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr.\, Stevie Wonder\, Is aac Hayes\, Cicely Tyson\, Mark Lane\, Marion Barry and many more.Gregorys friend\, Ted Terry\, initiated his first website\, in the year 1998\, http: //www.dickgregory.com\, which has now been redesigned and updated to includ e many of Gregorys books and record albums\, CDs\, and other information fo r those who want interact with the incomparable Dick Gregory. His most rece nt book\, Callus On My Soul\, (Longstreet Press\, Atlanta\, Ga.) which beca me a best-seller within weeks of publication\, is an autobiography that upd ates his earlier autobiography (Nigger)\, because as Dick says\, Ive lived long enough to need two autobiographies which is fine with me. Im looking f orward to writing the third and fourth volumes as well.In 2001\, Gregory es caped death once again when a massive tree fell on his car in a storm in Wa shington D.C. crushing it completely\, causing him to have to be extricated from the car by emergency crews. One witness said\, I knew the driver and his passengers had died when I saw the tree fall. Gregory said\, "I knew th at God had more work for me to do when I saw the tree falling. " He saved h is own life by driving into the oncoming lanes of traffic. The word of the accident circulated the globe immediately in the media\, underscoring the p ower\, influence\, and support that Gregory has earned from people of all n ations.Doctors at George Washington Hospital refused to release Gregory for a few days causing his first-ever State of the Union Address to African Am ericans to be delayed by a month. Gregory gave the first State of The Union address live on the Internet from Los Angeles on April 21st. Now the Inter net address is the latest offering on a 3 CD set. Dick Gregory 21st Century State Of The Union SUMMARY:Dick Gregory plus/ Martha Redbone END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR