| some of the marches. He was back in town to honor the Man, Father Groppi. Gregory hadn't changed much in the almost 30 years when I saw him give a keynote speech for the Evan Doss campaign in the Masonic Temple off Jackson State University's campus in Jackson, Ms. He was a little grayer, but no less vital. He still makes 240 appearances a year. When I asked Gregory for an interview before people marched to the center of the 16th Street viaduct for the commemoration ceremony, he took me on this little walk up Clybourn Street to find the person who had his bag for he would be leaving Milwaukee afterwards where he has spent three days as one of the featured guests at the weekend celebration. I suspected that he just wanted to take a walk so he wouldn't be standing around being recognized as he was interviewed. When he performs, Gregory is the center of attention. But otherwise, he eschews the attention. He's just like any other brother on the street. He doesn't march up front with the leaders of the march; he kind of walked to the side. While all of the speakers sat on the podium waiting for their turn to speak, Gregory hung out on the side of the speaker's platform. For all his talent and fame, Gregory is not infatuated with his own public persona. Gregory makes no bones about it; he's in Milwaukee to honor Groppi. "This man -- Father Groppi -- did something the Pope didn't do," Gregory emphasized. "The Catholic Church never came out for this struggle. They never came out for the priests and nuns who were killed in South America. But when he came out, there were priests and nuns all over the world. They came here on the weekend. I was here. I don't know if it was the president or vice president of Boston College who was here. They were coming in from the Vatican, nuns and priests on their own just to say 'Thank you.' Nobody ever called them to come to the table. But Father Groppi did. One day when history writes itself, it's going to be awesome man, awesome." Gregory credits Groppi with showing the world that America's racism was a national phenomenon and not just a peculiar condition of the South. "When all of us from around the world back then looked at Mississippi, New Orleans, Georgia and Alabama, nobody ever thought about the problems we had up North," Gregory said. "America is one big country. There is no such thing as a cocaine for the hip folks in New York and another cocaine for the square folks in Mississippi. It's one cocaine. America is one racist system. If I take my baby finger and cut about an inch of it off, and don't do anything, I'd bleed to death and that shock is felt in my brain or in my heart because my hand is a part of my whole body. There's no such thing as your toe has cancer, but you don't have it. There is no such thing as I have sugar diabetes in my knee or arthritis in your knee. You have arthritis. It just shows the pain in your knee or in the joints, but it runs rampant through your body." And Gregory feels that Groppi was one of the first White men to stand up for civil rights against the White establishment. "What was beautiful about Father Groppi is he represented to me the siren of a fire truck or ambulance," Gregory said. "Imagine I was hit by a car just now on this street and two blocks up here, you were hit by a car. And as I lay here and hear the siren, I feel good because I thought they were coming for me. But I don't know the first call is for you. But just hearing the siren, I feel better and by the time it passes by me, I can hear the second one coming for me. That's what he was. He was the siren. He said 'Help is on the way.' He stood up and talked to a White America like no Black folks had ever talked with no hatred, with no meanness, with no bitterness. He raised his voice and every one heard him. And Black folks sat back there and said 'Wow man.' So what he really did was help White folks. He made a whole lot of Black folks trust White folks because it was the first time that we ever heard, ever heard in the history of America, he was the first White folk of record to tell White folk to heck with it. And we liked it." Gregory has seen a change in America since the 1960s. Back then when people marched for civil rights, the system was against them, from the FBI down to the local policeman. The Jeda 6 march showed Gregory that some things have changed." The fear isn't on us now," Gregory said. "When we marched down South, White folks were standing as close as me you are and they would cuss us out and spit on us. They would tell us they were going to kill us because the cops were right there and tolerated it. When we went to Jena not too long ago, you didn't see any White folks. It was like a town that disappeared. Anytime you go into a White neighborhood and you don't hear a dog bark or a cat meow, all at once now, they can't do that because you have a different FBI and a different police department that won't tolerate it." Gregory attributes the recent turnaround in political fortunes to White people wakening up and seeing where the country is heading. "Did you see that last election when the Senate and the House changed?" Gregory asked. "That wasn't Black folks. That was White folks. Let me tell you what scares the devil out of Republicans. When they looked at that election, they thought the Christian Right boycotted the polls. And when the research came out, the Christian Right voted higher in the last election than they did in the last 10 years. Then they found out that it was the decent White folks that came out, that changed that because they see things with a different eye. They see what Father Groppi saw back then." In Gregory's view, there are three major civil rights issues today. The first two are police brutality and health. The third is the dishonesty of the press. "There's no way that all of this can go on and they don't know it," Gregory said. "People all over the world know the CIA and the FBI shot Kennedy. You mean the New York Times doesn't know that?" Gregory is definitely on the side of the conspiracy theorists. He feels that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed not because he was for civil rights or against the Vietnam War. "He was killed because he was the first Black person in the history of America who got in position to determine public policy," Gregory emphasized. During his later speech, Gregory used humor like a sword to drive his points home. When talking about police brutality, Gregory urged his audience to have no fear and to stay cool in their interactions with the police. He drove his point home with this little tale about driving down South. "I was trying to get to a party," Gregory revealed to the audience. "I didn't see no cops on the highway. I was doing 110 mph. I don't know where this White cop jumped out of. He was going faster than me. He pulled me over. I didn't have an attitude. I wasn't scared of him. He walked up to me with a strange look on his face. He said 'You know how fast you were going?' I said 'Yep.' He said 'You know, you got me in a bind.' I asked 'What do you mean?' 'Well,' the cop replied, 'today is my birthday at midnight. I'm due off at midnight. And my wife is having this birthday party for me. I live about 30 miles from here, so I'm already going to be a half hour late. I've been a state trooper for 37 years. I can't just let you go to get to the party because it would be a disservice to the people in my state, as fast as you were going. I've been a state trooper for 37 years and I have to take you in to write you up. So if you can give me any good reason why you were going 110 mph -- a reason I haven't heard in 37 years, I've heard them all -- then I'll let you go.' I said, 'Well, 37 years ago, a White state trooper ran off with my Black wife and when I saw you in that rear-view mirror, I thought you was bringing her back.' He smiled and said 'Thank you brother.'" The audience laughed for several minutes. Dick Gregory is still crazy after all of these years. |
| Dick Gregory speaks at March on Milwaukee A lifelong civil rights passion by Jonathan Gramling |
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| As I walk alongside Dick Gregory, the comedian/civil rights activist, on Clybourn Street near the 16th Street viaduct in Milwaukee, I have to hustle to keep up. Gregory was in town for March on Milwaukee, the 40th anniversary of the Fr. James Groppi-led open housing marches across the viaduct. Gregory was there back in 1967 for |