The uncompromising satire of America's best-known black comedian comes to television when NET Journal presents "Dick Gregory is Alive and Well." The program is an hour-long view of Gregory, built around an ironic address on racism which he gave before a mixed audience last summer at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. While preparing for that performance Gregory recalls his early days as a comedian when he was "just up there to pay my rent," as well as the first years of the civil-rights movement when he began touring college campuses to employ "the strength of emerging youth" in a struggle against racism. He talks about the fear he felt before an appearance in the South: "I'd wake the kids and kiss them; I'd say goodbye like it could be the last time." And landing at an Alabama airport also brought reminiscences: "I used to get buster here as soon as I got off the plane ... 500 state police would be waiting." Much of the address Gregory gave in Tuscaloosa was subsequently recorded in an album titled "Dick Gregory: The Light Side, The Dark Side." His attack against racism and what he calls the moral pollution of the country included jibes at American history texts: "We're so numb we got nerve enough to teach the Indians that Columbus discovered America." And TV commercials, "I'm tired of hearing, Marge there's a white dove in your kitchen. How about hearing, Beulah, baby, there's a black crow on the biscuits." And to Northern liberal students he says: "Before you come down here and alienate your Southern racist brothers, take a black kid home with you and bug your mommy and daddy." Gregory hits constantly at a white society that shuts black people out and yet expects them to conform to its rules. In this vein he explains why the past year's "riot season" was so quite: "We got tired of stealing those bad products. This year we went underground to study the consumer reports. So this season when the riot season opens again we ain't gonna be stealing no Motorolas." On the subject of "Negro" versus "black" Gregory says: "Call us whatever you want, but it's safer for you to call us black." When other nationalities came to America they retained their identities, he says, but when Africans were brought here they became Negro or colored. "Don't play games with us, play games with yourself," he advises. "Call yourself clear folks."