Hired by Hugh Hefner for a three-year run in a Chicago nightclub in 1961, Gregory wowed the southern white audience with the following opener:
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night.
"Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, We don't serve colored people here. I said, That's all right. I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken
"Then these three white boys came up to me and said, Boy, we're givin' you fair warnin'. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you. So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, Line up, Boys!" [1]