(ThyBlackMan.com) Around the time that “The Cosby Show” was becoming America’s top-rated TV program in the mid 1980s, my dad gave me a quick, impromptu history lesson about Bill Cosby and Dick Gregory.
Dad told me that while Cosby and Gregory came up as comics around the same time, and were friends, Cosby was able to rise to a higher level of stardom because his color-neutral comedy was more digestible for mainstream American than the hard hitting social commentary that Gregory often served up to audiences.
My takeaway from dad’s message was that “keeping it real” was not the pathway to mega success for any black man in America. I took the message to heart, but it did not make me dislike Bill Cosby. As a teenager at the time, I had enjoyed seeing Cosby in JELL-O® Pudding ads, and watching him guest host the “Tonight Show” also was a great treat. The emergence of “The Cosby Show’s” popularity was further proof to me that Bill Cosby was an all-around good guy. The high achieving, wholesome Huxtable clan was like no other African American family that we had seen on TV. I also appreciated the subtle symbols of black power like the occasional guest 
appearances by legendary jazz artists and the anti-apartheid poster on young Theo Huxtable’s bedroom door. And in 1988, while still the star of the top-rated television show, Bill Cosby and his wife Camille donated $20 million to Spelman. The gift was the largest single contribution ever made to a black college.
However, while I was admiring everything positive that Mr. Cosby appeared to be, my dad’s talk also prompted me to learn more about Mr. Gregory. In doing so, I found out that long before Cosby was a guest host on the “Tonight Show,” Gregory declined invitations to appear on the “Tonight Show” hosted by Jack Parr until the show agreed that he could sit on the sofa after his stand-up performance and actually talk to Parr. This made Dick Gregory the first black guest to be granted this “honor.” I also learned that Dick Gregory was friends with Martin Luther King, Medgar Evans and Malcolm X; delivered food to N.A.A.C.P. offices in the South; and marched in Selma, Ala. He may not have had fancy sweaters, or the most watched show on TV, but I learned that Dick Gregory was a pretty cool dude, too, and that his commitment to people in need was very real.
In the year’s following The Cosby Show’s reign as the toast of primetime TV, my views on Mr. Cosby began to change. Like many I was deeply disturbed by the remarks he delivered at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Better known as the “Pound Cake” speech, Cosby told the world that the “lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding their end in this deal.” He made his proclamation in the most mean spirited of ways, while showing no connection to struggling masses of black people in our nation and the history and conditions that have caused this suffering. A few years later Cosby made visits to my proud city, Detroit, supposedly to support better public education for our K-12 students. However, he did so alongside an emergency manager who had been placed in power by the governor, not the citizens of Detroit. Once again, Cosby appeared to be preaching and talking down to the masses without making a real attempt to connect with our people on a human level.
Some may say that the negative press Cosby is currently receiving over sexual assault allegations dating back many years is connected to bad karma he has reaped for displaying a lack of compassion for hurting people. I don’t know if this is true, but I do feel that more African Americans would have deeper compassion, if not belief in Cosby, if he had used his platform to truly made a heartfelt connection with the totality of the black community—warts and all—during his long career. And I say this with all due respect to any woman linked to the sexual assault allegations who may have been harmed by Cosby.
While the Cosby saga plays out, Dick Gregory continues to live a life that is deeply steeped in activism and service to others. Mr. Gregory remains a supporter of the underdog, which ironically has even included a call for “due process” in response to the allegations against Cosby. But more often than not, Mr. Gregory keeps it real by being an advocate and agitator for our masses. As stated on his “Global Watch” website, Mr. Gregory and his wife Lil (Lillian) made an agreement, “We promised ourselves that black folks would always come first.”
Staff Writer; Scott Talley
This talented journalist is owner of a public relations firm; Scott Talley & Associates, Inc….
