I had the best night. William and I got our Dick Gregory tickets a month ago, as soon as I made a wrong turn on Broadway and saw in the window of Caroline’s on Broadway that he’d be performing. He was funny and brilliant and poignant: almost every joke had a message inside, i.e., “Strange, isn’t it, that our government spends so much to protect us from terrorists so we can die from obesity.” He’d been at Michael Jackson’s memorial service and showed us all the program.
For anyone not familiar with his work, Gregory was a huge commedian in the 1960s — huge meaning wildly popular and huge meaning obese. He also drank and smoked a lot. But then something happened: he met a naturopath on the South Side of Chicago, Dr. Alvenia Fulton, and she encouraged him to adopt a vegan diet and undertake periodic fasts, resulting in his becoming a fit, nonsmoking teetotaler. He did a nutritionally fortified juice fast for over two years, promising to only drink juices until the Vietnam war ended. To me as a young, idealistic vegetarian, he was a hero and role model. I read his book Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat a dozen times.
In 1975, he contacted fans around the country encouraging us to come together in Atlanta on Christmas Day and spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s fasting to draw attention to world hunger. We’d stay in the gym of the Ebeneezer Baptist Church and fast on water. Dr. Fulton would be there to supervise. I wanted to do it in the worst way, but I had misgivings. I didn’t see how I could afford the plane ticket, and I wondered if my grandmother, with whom I lived at the time, would feel bad if I left town right after opening our Christmas presents. I will be forever grateful to my friend Alima back in Kansas City, a psychic by profession and wise by nature, who said: “If you don’t do this, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” I got money together and right after the presents, flew to Atlanta.
There were 125 of us altogether. We’d come from all over the country with our sleeping bags and blankets. To keep us going, Mr. Gregory had scheduled celebrity conference calls every afternoon. One day we talked with Coretta Scott King. Another day it was Muhammad Ali. Someone called out to him: “Hey, champ, when are you gonna stop eating meat?” Ali replied very thoughtfully: “I can’t do that till after I retire. This is a very violent sport and being a vegetarian makes a person peaceful.”
One night, two other women and I were in the ladies’ room and thought we were sharing some kind of fasters’ hallucination. We looked out the window and saw something in the sky that looked like a huge neon star, the way the Star of Bethlehem might be portrayed in a holiday pageant. It was sufficiently uncanny that we called Dick Gregory to check it out. After he saw what we’d seen, he got all 125 of us up and out into the parking to look at this incredible star. Either all 125 of us were hallucinating, or it was there.
After we filed back inside, the office phone rang. It was a representative from a Native American tribe out West. They’d heard what we were doing and had fasted that day in solidarity with us. They’d just done a solemn ceremony to stand with us and with the cause of alleviating hunger around the world. The leader called to see if anything had “happened” as a result. We figured the celestial apparition counted as something happening. After that, whatever it was we’d seen faded from view.
I wanted to give this mentor from so long ago some snapshots I had from that week, and I was able to give them to him tonight. My friend, Linda Long, food photographer and author of Great Chefs Cook Vegan, wanted to be there, too, because she also had a Dick Gregory story. Six months after the fast, he had spent a fortnight at her hotel in the Catskills, accompanying Ali as he trained for his upcoming fight with Ken Norton. He ordered flats of fruit and veggies, and outfitted his room with an array of juicers and blenders. Linda asked him, “Can you really be healthy as a vegetarian?” Gregory said, “Meet me downstairs and I’ll tell you.” He had with him a USDA nutrition handbook and spent three hours educating his hostess about plant-based nutrition. She hasn’t had a bite of flesh since that fateful afternoon.
So I was there tonight with Linda, sporting her book to give him as a thank-you; and with Patti Breitman, my former literary agent and co-author of How to Eat Like a Vegetarian Even if You Never Want to Be One; and William, who laughed a lot—DG is still a master of stand-up—and was really glad he closed out his work day a little early for a special night out. He walked home and we girls went to Zen Palate for “herbal tonics”—herb tea with fruit infusions and Chinese power herbs—before catching the number 2 train at 42nd Street. I felt like one of the luckiest people on earth. I feel like that a lot.
Here’s what I know: if Dick Gregory can still perform and inspire at 76, I want to still perform and inspire at 76. Since Dick Gregory taught me about a vegan diet and raw foods and juicing, I can teach other people. And because Dick Gregory spoke truth to power before that phraes was even coined—and when speaking didn’t work, he stopped eating—I have to speak truth, too, even when it’s not popular and some people would rather not hear. If I sound inspired, I’m very inspired. And I hope it’s renewable.
New Yorkers: he’ll appear again tonight, Thursday, July 16 — go see him. It’s a wonderful show and this man is an icon: www.carolines.com. Also, I’ll be speaking on “Victoria’s Victorious Bailout Plan” at the Integral Yoga Institute in NYC on Thursday, July 23rd. If you’re interested in attending or getting more information, go to www.iyny.org.
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