Dick Gregory has been an unsparing and incisive cultural force for
more than fifty years: a friend of such luminaries as Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers, Gregory is an unrelenting, lifelong
activist against social injustice, whether he was marching in Selma
during the Civil Rights movement or organizing student demonstrations
to protest the Vietnam War, participating in rallies for Native
American and feminist rights or fighting apartheid in South Africa.
Known as much for
his comedic achievements—as an actor, author, and social critic—as
for his activism, Gregory is the forebearer of today's new generation
of black comics, including W. Kamu Bell and Trevor Noah. But Gregory
has always kept it indisputably real when discussing race in America,
fearlessly lacing laughter with controversial truths in a manner that
is inimitable his own.
Now, in Defining
Moments in Black History, Gregory charts the empowering yet often
obscured past of the African American experience. In his
unapologetically candid voice, he moves from African ancestry and
surviving the middle passage to modern-day protests, A captivating
journey through time, this collection of provocative essays explores
historical movements such as the Great Migration and the Harlem
Renaissance, as well as cultural touchstones, among them Marian
Anderson's performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and
Billie Holiday's haunting delivery of "Strange Fruit."
Here is an
essential, unique, no-holds-barred history lesson, sure to provoke,
enlighten, uplift, and entertain—from one our greatest legends.