I'm currently reading Hal Higdon's book from the early 1970's On the Run from Dogs and People. He and Gregory were training partners/ teammates. I've not read across the trans-con excursion but have read it from other sources.
Not to hijack, but for a comical look at the history of our sport at the early onset of the boom when runners were (and were considered) wackos, find a copy of this gem.
Well this guy also claimed to have "cured his cancer with fruit juice" so there's that.
What are the facts?
Gregory was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2000 and opted for herbs, exercise and vitamins instead of chemotherapy. The cancer went into remission a few years later.
I don't know how far and long Dick Gregory ran across the country, but he and his brother Ron were track stars in high school in St. Louis and college. Dick Gregory ran at Southern Illinois and was the school record holder in the 800m. Ron was a numerous times state cross country and state mile champion and was a star at Notre Dame.
"In America, with all of its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. But we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting for our country."
I've never seen so many idiotic comments in one place on my life. And it seems apparent by many comments, that you millennial aged youngsters naively believe that if a "5 minute Google search" doesn't validate something for you, that simply means the event never happened! To thonk and believe that way, is unbelievably naive and gullible. To think that EVERY event in history, is recorded and detailed on Google would be laughable, but not when I see young people actually gullible enough to believe that! Well here's a real "news flash" for you, to use your own words. Dick Gregory DID make the run as detailed in his itinerary detailed below, and if ANY of you were ild enough to remember 1976 as an adult at the time, you'd remember that his cross country run was National News! It was covered ON the news. It was EVEN covered briefly on ABC Wide World of Sports in 76 as he was running it. And ABC wide world of sports was the most prestigious sports program world wide. They were not fabricating some story, simply to allow some "vegan to make a statement". Even the thought of that is absurd.
FYI:
The event took place in 1976. NOT 1974 as someone says they "read on Google". It happened in 1976. He ran it for publicity purposes to bring awareness to all the starving and homeless people across America.
The only other thing I'll say about this that you people who believe Google is the say all end all, for every single event in history thats ever happened, need to put your naive, gullible little minds on the right track. Open some books and start reading. Learn to dig through actual archives, and even read old, actual newspapers to research things. There are endless avenues of PROPER research, and Google is NOT one of them. Google is a privately run, biased organization that covers what THEY want to cover. And that also includes using the terribly biased Wikipedia, which is another biased point of view, only giving proper coverage to those thing THEY want to perpetuate in history. Neither Google nor Wikipedia should EVER be trusted for an accurate, unbiased report on something.
Get your heads out of the sand and come into the real world, and put of Google/Wikipedia fantasy land.
Dick Gregory wrote a book about his diet, including a 40 day fast if I remember correctly, and might have mentioned his run across the country. I was at the time (several decades ago) more interested in the former, not the latter, and still have that book somewhere but am not sure where it is at this point. He lost quite a bit of weight on the diet, from 300 pounds (?), gave credit to the diet for saving his life and regaining his health.
I met Dick Gregory when he ran across the country in 1976. He had a running partner and made memorable jokes about running with this man. (Essentially, depending on who was in front, Gregory joked that some assumed he was attacking his partner, or that he stole something and was trying to get away. Gregory’s running partner is named in a book excerpt posted in this thread.)
As he crossed the country, Dick Gregory and his support entourage held a publicized event at Franklin Park in Columbus, Ohio (on U. S. Route 40). The Columbus event and the run were well publicized, or people like me would not have known to meet him there. I had no direct contact with Gregory before this event. (Imagine a life with no World Wide Web, no social media!)
I ran track one school year, and I ran for exercise most of my life after that. I ran around Franklin Park daily in the mid-1970s. I had already read his book, “Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cooking with Mother Nature.” The book included an extensive cross reference of food items and their nutrients. It begins with statements that this book is for people who think, not just about food but about everything. It is still a timely concept.
This post was edited 11 minutes after it was posted.