I always had some comedy records in my collection: David Frye, Nichols & May, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Firesign Theater, Conception Corporation, Cheech & Chong, and Richard Pryor all come to mind right now. I was 16- or 17-years-old when I heard Pryor's record "That Nigger's Crazy" and it was jaw-dropping. In 1966, use of the N-word was no longer allowed in my mother's house, and she was an active anti-racist raising 4 kids as a single-mother in a very racist city. I approached the record with trepidation, embarrassment, and fear. And then I laughed until I cried.
Pryor was a revolutionary comic who started his career in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, was on television regularly starting in the late-1960s, and in the 1970s became a writer in Hollywood, continued his stand-up and recording success, and hosted a short-lived television show. By the 1980s he was a household name.
Although never politically vocal or active there is a story during a run at the Aladdin Hotel, in Las Vegas, in the mid-1960s, where he walked onto the stage, looked at the audience (likely an all-white audience) and spoke into the microphone: "What am I doing here?" and walked off.
Pryor consistently and persistently pushed the issue of race into the cultural dialog. He never wavered and his brilliant comedic writing made the discussion palatable to industry executives who still, to this day, live in fear of race while they promote racist policies.
From the 1970s through the end of the nineties Pryor appeared in over fifty Hollywood movies! He was a commercial superstar. Like most superstars of his generation, the 1970s were a time of rampant sex and drug use, and tales of his partying and sexual orientation regularly circulated.
During the filming of "Stir Crazy" in 1980, as the story goes, Pryor was freebasing cocaine and was set on fire. There are multiple versions of the story, even from Pryor himself, but the result was that he was severely burned over a large part of his body. It only took a couple of years for him to work it into his stand-up routine.
An autobiography, "Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences" was released in 1995.
Richard Pryor was not an activist, but he raised the consciousness of all Americans about the condition of America for people of color, and the actions of police against black men, which persist today.
Richard Pryor was an American hero, and one funny motherfucker!
This 1979 routine about police still applies in 2021: https://youtu.be/ZWulvchFpYs
#blackhistorymonth #BlackLivesMatter #WorkForChange
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