For Gregory, who became a vegetarian in 1965, food and diet became inextricably linked to civil rights. “The philosophy of nonviolence, which I learned from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during my involvement in the civil rights movement, was first responsible for my change in diet,” he writes in his book. “I felt the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each other—war, lynching, assassination, murder, and the like—but in their practice of killing animals for food or sport.”
Throughout Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet, he ties the liberation of Black people to health, nutrition, and basic human rights. Gregory was all too familiar with the socioeconomic obstacles to a healthy diet: Growing up poor in St. Louis, he had limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables. In his book, he notes that readers may not always have the best resources, but they can have the best information. Each chapter serves as both a rallying cry and a manual, offering everything from primers on the human body to lists of foods that are good sources of particular vitamins and minerals.
Thanks to Gregory’s longstanding collaboration with nutritionist Dr. Alvenia Fulton, the book offers healthy recipes as well as natural remedies for common ailments. The chapter “Mother Nature’s Medicare” includes recipes for everything from party fare (“nature’s champagne”) to headache cures (a mixture of tomato, celery, and onion juice). For those who might want to gain or lose weight, the chapter “Dick Gregory’s Weight-On/Weight-Off Natural Diet” includes recipes for nondairy milks and weekly meal plans.
Gregory’s culinary contributions, rather than being a footnote to his already eventful life, have formed a large part of his legacy. Cliff Notez, a musician and multimedia artist from Boston, has been vegan for four years and embraces much of Dick Gregory’s philosophy. “I think he’s definitely one of the few Black intellectual writers who openly [spoke] about veganism, vegetarianism,” Notez says.
While a lot has changed since 1974, there are still obstacles to living a healthy, plant-based lifestyle. As Notez points out, “it can be harder to become vegan in inner city communities” due to persistent food deserts. Countering these challenges is a new generation of Black culinary leaders who continue Gregory’s legacy of empowerment through education. As the chef-in-residence at San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora, Bryant Terry runs programs focused on the intersection of food, poverty, and activism. An acclaimed chef who’s published several vegan cookbooks, Terry also cites Gregory as a profound influence. In an interview with the AARP, he described Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet as “one of those seminal texts that influenced me to think more about these issues and be invested in shifting my own personal health and well-being.”