Dick Gregory Quotes
We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn't it either. I'm going to be an American Citizen. First class.
Gregory, Dick, and Robert Lipsyte. Nigger: An Autobiography. Dutton, 1964.
I was born here. My children were born here. What the hell do I have to do to be called an American?
A Boston newspaper referred to Kennedy as "an Irishman." Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was an ugly, anti-Irish dimension to the national scene that was every bit as ugly as the other ethnic hatreds like anti-Semitism. The Irish like the early Jews had six strikes against them. They were foreigners. They were not Christian Protestants, they were poor, they did not know the American culture, they spoke English with a distinct accent, and they were the lowest of the lower classes. Even rich Irish like Kennedy were looked down upon and when his son ran for President he had to overcome a still significant block of anti-Irish Americans.
In a famous debate with Congressman Henry De La Flood (Democrat, VA), the issue was the common practice of hiring foreign nationals to represent the United States in many foreign posts, since their services could be obtained much less expensively than the costs of sending Americans abroad:. See President Millard Fillmore's 1856 campaign speech.
Richard Claxton Gregory was an American comedian, civil rights and vegetarian activist. His writings were best sellers. Gregory became popular among the African-American communities in the southern United States with his "no-holds-barred" sets, poking fun at the bigotry and racism in the United States. In 1961 he became a staple in the comedy clubs, appeared on television, and released comedy record albums.
