Freedom in Laughter: Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, and the Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

This book explores the transformative role of comedy in the US civil rights movement by comparing and contrasting the careers of popular comedians Bill Cosby and Dick Gregory. Although Cosby and Gregory took very different approaches to civil rights, the former addressing the movement indirectly and the latter directly, Freedom in Laughter argues that both comedians “made extraordinary strides in helping America laugh and learn” and that their “pioneering, politicized contributions in the arena of comedy demand their recasting as leading cultural activists in the nation's civil rights era” (111). The overall argument is one that will be of great interest to students and scholars of American humor studies, and the account of Dick Gregory's career will be of special interest to those who study how comedy and politics can be intertwined. Although even for a short book, there is little to no original research and, regrettably, Frierson can too easily praise comedians, such as in his congratulating Cosby for sidestepping the direct involvement that worked so well for Gregory's career and political goals, it does nevertheless provide timely insight into an important and influential era of American humor history.The book takes us through the lives and careers of these two famous comedians, centering on their stand-up comedy but including accounts of their similar childhoods and their very different careers in comedy and politics. Gregory put civil rights and race issues at the center of his comedy and his life, consistently displaying a remarkable moral and physical courage; not only did he give away millions of dollars to move the cause forward but he put his own personal safety on the frontlines of conflict. Although acknowledging that Cosby generally went out of his way to avoid direct participation in the civil rights movement, Frierson wants to argue that Cosby too had a “politics of representation,” one that “highlighted his humanity rather than his race” (59). The effort to rescue Cosby is a bit forced, and the accounts of both careers are often flavored with unhelpful cliché and hagiography. That said, Frierson is more persuasive when he argues that “Gregory's fearless leadership shattered conventional constraints within and beyond the arena of comedy” (80) than he is when he argues that “Cosby calculated each of his show business moves as part of a plan to strike it rich and effect racial advancement” (81). The overall point here is a good one—that is, that “the dichotomy between the comedians belongs in historical debates on twentieth-century strategies for African American uplift” (59)—but it is unnecessary to suggest they were the same in terms of strategy, commitment, and courage, and it is also inaccurate.One of the great joys of this book is its account of Gregory, whose career deserves an elaborated treatment. In addition to becoming an extremely successful and very well-known stand-up comedian, Gregory was a front-line activist who was shot “while attempting to mediate between law enforcement and a rioting crowd of African Americans” (55), a mayoral and presidential candidate (79-80), and the recipient of a $100 million contract to sell “Dick Gregory's Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet” (114-15). A harsh and forthright critic of capital and the state, he argued that “capitalism respects only wealth, not human values,” evidence of which for him was that he was respectable only because he was “making big money” (79). Gregory's sometimes brilliant and often wild career recalls those of many other larger-than-life humorists, in particular Mark Twain's, and will always be of deep interest to American humor scholarship.The book's tendency to protect Cosby despite the inevitably unflattering contrast to Gregory is regrettable and results in some clumsy writing, including the cliché-ridden account of Cosby's disgrace, which describes how “beginning in 2014, a firestorm of reports about his sexual proclivities irreparably tarnished his image” (127-28). The missed opportunity here is not one in which Gregory would be held up high and Cosby brought low, but one in which the two contrasting careers would serve as an index of the fact that a humor industry inextricably bound to a broadly white supremacist, capitalist state has been challenged by a diverse set of individuals and practices that broadly embraced the civil rights movement. Freedom in Laughter does some fine work in its discussion of the partnership between comedy and civil rights and will hopefully spark a robust, ongoing conversation on the subject.