Social activist/comedian, Dick Gregory, was once quoted as saying that the way to stop genocide of minorities is by having lots of babies and that he did. He and his wife Lillian, have 10 children together. They had 11 but, Richard Claxton Gregory, Jr. (which is Dick’s real name) passed away when he was only two months old. We wanted to share this 2000 interview Dick Gregory did with The Boston Globe because it’s interesting to see Gregory be so brutally honest about not really being there for his wife and 10 kids, but also not regretting it either. If you’ve ever heard Dick Gregory speak, you know that he NEVER censors his words, nor bites his tongue. So here it is, Dick Gregory raw and uncut via TBG…
Gregory on why he married Lillian:
‘One afternoon in Chicago, [Dick Gregory] met Lillian Smith, a secretary. Dating led to passion. ”No son of mine will ever get a girl pregnant and not marry her,” Gregory’s mother had always told him. Lil got pregnant. ”That’s how I got married,” he recalls. ”It was no glamour.”
They honeymooned – if you can call it that – on a Greyhound bus, going to St. Louis to live with his sister. Then he hit the road to do comedy.’
On how he chose fighting for justice over raising his 10 children:
‘[Through all of] the protests, the rallies, the walking, the running – what of the 10 children? Mostly, they’ve only had Lil,’ their mother.
”It was never in my psyche that I’m going to be a great father,” Gregory says. ”Mine was: I’m going to be a great fighter for the liberation, whatever it takes.”’
Gregory had weaknesses when it came to funding the movement for justice…’damn the family’:
‘Once, he was at a rally in Atlanta, sitting onstage next to businessman Bertram Lee. Gregory started whispering to Lee about money woes, the children’s school fees. Lee wrote him an $18,000 check. Then activist Hosea Williams arrived, bloodied from a local protest. Williams started preaching; more money was needed for the movement. ”I gave him my check,” says Gregory. ”Damn the family.”
