Biography
Dick Gregory was a celebrity who used celebrity as a platform for direct participation in civil rights, antiwar, and later human-rights causes, treating activism as something to do in public view rather than merely endorse. His politics were often expressed through marches, hunger strikes, and high-risk demonstrations intended to convert media attention into pressure on institutions—especially around racial injustice and state violence.
He was arrested multiple times for civil disobedience. One of the best-documented incidents occurred in 1966, when he and his wife joined a Nisqually-led “fish-in” in Washington protesting restrictions that conflicted with treaty fishing rights; Gregory was arrested for illegal net fishing and then undertook a prolonged fast while jailed to draw attention to the underlying political issue. The pattern—public protest followed by arrest, then a sustained effort to turn detention into a spotlight on policy—became characteristic of his activist life.
Contemporary Reidsville case outcome
The February 1980 newsletter reports that Dick Gregory was among 67 demonstrators arrested when a support march reached Reidsville, Georgia. It does not state his individual booking or release day or the length of that detention. An adjacent flyer advertises an August 6-11 march, but the account does not explicitly establish that the arrest took place on the advertised arrival date; no exact date or additional continuous custody period is inferred. This is a separate reported incident from his Nisqually fishing-rights arrests and sentence service.
Source: Pontiac Prisoners Support Coalition Newsletter, number 11, February 1980, pp. 4-5. Political characterizations and allegations are attributed to the support coalition.
The Black Panther reported on December 3, 1977 that Dick Gregory, his wife Lillian and Massachusetts state senator Bill Owens refused bail and were jailed overnight after demonstrating against apartheid outside the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. The reported charge was demonstrating within 500 feet of a foreign embassy. The article dates the protest to the preceding week without giving exact custody dates or a final disposition.
