New York, Dec. 18—It is sad to see Dick Gregory, the comedian turned evangelist, signing (along with Ossie Davis) a money-raising letter in behalf of the Black Panthers, so I was glad of the opportunity (recently, at the University of Bridgeport) to discover what are his views on the Panthers, and for that matter on things in general, several years having gone by since I first came across him.
My attitude toward him may be colored by his having on one occasion leaned over and whispered to me that he had advised his wife and friends that I was a “beautiful cat.” I have aspired to many things, but was never so ambitious as to dream that I would be called that by Dick Gregory. In turn I told him how moving I had found his book, an autobiography titled—unfortunately, I think —Nigger. And so we have proceeded to listen to one another: and what I hear is in one sense disheartening, in another sense not.
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