The NBA great and THR columnist met the comedian and activist, who died Saturday at age 84, only once, but the impact lasted a lifetime: “I know the path I want to continue to take because he walked it before me.”
Most people can name a book or two that they read in their youth that changed their lives in a significant way. I can name four: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) with Alex Haley, Soul on Ice (1968) by Eldridge Cleaver, The Fire Next Time (1963) by James Baldwin and Nigger: An Autobiography (1964) by Dick Gregory. Each of those books helped articulate my frustration with the prevalence of racism and social injustice, and each showed a path from that frustration to helping change things. The title of Dick’s book alone felt freeing to me, as if seeing that word on the cover of a book in a bookstore drained some of its pejorative power and instead made it a rallying word of defiance. I met him a few years after his book came out at a Black Pride rally in Harlem. I was a college student, and he was already famous as an edgy comedian with a social conscience. We met only in passing: We shook hands, he smiled warmly, and then he was off to address the crowd. The moment was over.
Except it wasn’t. As he spoke about the need for black people to embrace their culture and heritage, to band together with love and pride and to continue to speak out in support of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, I felt energized. I had joined my share of rallies and marches, but I realized then that I needed to do more and that I must never falter in my commitment. I never ran into Dick again. But over the next 50 years, whenever I became discouraged with our progress in fighting racism, whenever I felt like there was no hope, I could glance over and see Dick Gregory leading marches and sit-ins, fasting to the bone for freedom for all, and I would again be energized. Even in the week before his Aug. 19 death, at the age of 84, he was on the road bringing entertainment and enlightenment to the people. I know the path I want to continue to take because he walked it before me.
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