Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory dies at age 84

Dick Gregory, who broke racial barriers in the 1960s as a comedian and used his platform to become a civil rights and nutritional health activist, died late Saturday, according to his son Christian. He was 84. Over the years, Gregory would publicly fast to bring attention to a wide range of political and social causes. “Years of severe fasting, not for health but for social change, had damaged his vasculature system long ago. He always reminded us, many of his fasts were not about his personal health but an attempt to heal the world,” Christian Gregory said. His father had been hospitalized for a week in Washington, D.C., for a severe bacterial infection. Politically liberal, Gregory sought public office twice, running for mayor of Chicago in 1966 and U.S. president in 1968 as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate. Once overweight and a heavy smoker and drinker, Gregory became a proponent of liquid meals and raw food diets, developing and distributing in the late 1980s the Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet. His wife Lillian and 10 children survive him.