Regrets: Event canceled due to the all-too-soon passing of Mr Dick Gregory, 1932-2017. Rest in Peace.
IN PERSON! IN BERKELEY!
DICK GREGORY
THE MOST DEFINING MOMENTS IN BLACK HISTORY
Hosted by Kevin Cartwright
Wednesday October 11, 7:30 PM
First Congregational Church of Berkeley
2345 Channing Way
Berkeley
tickets:
$15 advance tickets: brownpapertickets.com T:800.838.3006, or Marcus Books, or Books Inc. (Berkeley), or Pegasus Books (3 shops), or Moe’s, or Mrs. Dalloway’s, or Walden Pond Bookstore, or Diesel a Bookshop
$18 door, KPFA benefit
Information: kpfa.org/events
With his trademark acerbic wit, incisive humor, and comical paranoia, one of our foremost comedians and most politically engaged civil rights activists looks back at 100 key events from the complicated history of Black America.
A friend of such historic luminaries as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Medgar Evers, and the forerunner of today’s popular black comics, including Larry Wilmore, W. Kamau Bell, Damon Young, and Trevor Noah, Dick Gregory has been a provocative and incisive cultural force for more than fifty years. As an entertainer, he has always kept it indisputably real about race issues in America, fearlessly lacing laughter with hard truths. As a leading activist against injustice, he marched at Selma during the Civil Rights movement, organized student rallies to protest the Vietnam War, sat in staunchly at rallies for Native American and feminist rights; fought apartheid in South Africa; and participated in hunger strikes supporting Black Lives Matter.
In this collection of thoughtful, provocative essays, Gregory charts the complex and often obscured history of the African American experience. In his unapologetically candid voice, he moves from African ancestry and surviving the Middle Passage to … the enjoyment of bacon and everything pig, the headline-making shootings of black men, and the Black Lives Matter movement. A captivating journey through time, The Most Defining Moments in Black History According to Dick Gregory explores historical movements such as The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance, as well as cultural touchstones such as Sidney Poitier winning the Best Actor Oscar for Lilies in the Field and Billie Holiday releasing Strange Fruit. An engaging look at black life that offers insightful commentary on the intricate history of the African American people, Gregory’s new book is an essential, no-holds-barred history lesson that will provoke, enlighten, and entertain.
Kevin Cartwright has been a radio producer, media trainer and music programmer for Pacifica Radio station KPFA-FM since 1994. He has produced and contributed to a number of local and national public affairs programs that have included Living Room with Larry Bensky, Democracy Now, the KPFA Evening News, and The Morning Show. Kevin is a communications strategist who continues to work with a number of local, state and national social change organizations across the country to help improve their overall communication and PR strategies, framing and messaging apparatus, media engagement and social media. Currently, Kevin is completing two short fiction works, Oakland and Slow Dancing In Babylon, as well as a suite of dramatic plays covering the past 60 years of West Oakland.
