Democracy Now! (8/21/17)
In a special broadcast today, we remember legendary comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who passed away on Saturday in Washington, D.C. at the age of 84. Gregory became one of the most popular comedians in the country, paving the way for generations of African-American comedians. On Sunday Chris Rock wrote on Instagram, “We lost a king. They’ll never be another. Read his books. Look him up you won’t be disappointed. Unfortunately the America that produced Dick Gregory still exists.”
Dick Gregory was the first African-American comedian to sit on the couch of The Tonight Show, then hosted by Jack Parr. As his popularity grew, so did his activism. In 1967, Dick Gregory ran for mayor of Chicago against the infamous Richard Daley. He was a close friend of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and in 1968 he ran for president against Richard Nixon. Dr. Greg Carr, chair of Afro-American Studies at Howard University and a friend of Gregory, described him as a perpetual student. “His intellectual capacity was honed to precision with a lifetime of deep study,” Carr told Diverse Magazine. We feature Dick Gregory in his own words in our 2002 interview with the comedian in our old firehouse studio. We first interviewed Gregory just months after Democracy Now!went on television.
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Vice News’ Elle Reeve Crushes Donald Trump’s Claims About Charlottesville
“They didn’t talk about Robert E. Lee being a brilliant military tactician.”
By Rebecca Shapiro
The HuffPost (8/21/17)
“Vice News Tonight” reporter Elle Reeve appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday morning to discuss her experience documenting white supremacists rallying in Charlottesville, Virginia, this month.
Reeve confirmed once again that the white supremacists and neo-Nazis gathered in Charlottesville were not rallying simply to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, as President Donald Trump argued last week.
“They didn’t talk about Robert E. Lee being a brilliant military tactician,” Reeve said of the white supremacists gathered on the campus of the University of Virginia on Aug. 11 and 12. “They chanted about Jews. They wanted to be menacing. It’s not an accident.” …
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- WATCH: Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News Tonight on HBO – On Saturday hundreds of white nationalists, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia to participate in the “Unite the Right” rally. By Saturday evening three people were dead – one protester, and two police officers – and many more injured. “VICE News Tonight” correspondent Elle Reeve went behind the scenes with the Nazis and white supraemicists … Link to 23-Minute Video
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Blubbering Nazi Christopher Cantwell Reveals From Hiding That His Attorney Dumped Him – Charlottesville pro-Nazi marcher and racist provocateur Christopher Cantwell said on Wednesday that he is in hiding and working with a new attorney after his first attorney dropped him in his ongoing dance with Charlottesville, VA police over warrants for his arrest. On Wednesday, Cantwell posted to his blog that he has left the state of Virginia, “but stayed nearby to monitor the situation and make turning myself in easier when the time came.” … “I contacted an attorney, but he dropped my case right around the time I read in the Boston Globe that I had two felony charges (one of which is a class 3) for what I presumed was pepper spraying a guy in a brawl at UVA (which the reds started),” he complained, still attempting to shift blame away from himself. … Read the Rest