Richard Pryor’s daughter Elizabeth is a scholar of the N-word

Summary

Fresh Air – Richard Pryor’s Daughter Elizabeth Storter Pryor on Richard Pryor, the N-Word, and Family

Podcast: Fresh Air (NPR/WHYY)
Host: Tonya Moseley
Guest: Elizabeth Storter Pryor – History Professor, Smith College; Author of “Something We Said: Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word, and Me”
Air Date: June 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on Elizabeth Storter Pryor, scholar, historian, and daughter of comedian Richard Pryor. Her new book weaves family memoir and the cultural history of the N-word, a word central to both her father’s legacy and her own scholarship. Host Tonya Moseley guides an intimate conversation about identity, language, personal pain, and the intersections of private and public legacies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Coming Out as Richard Pryor’s Daughter

• Elizabeth never revealed her famous connection until much later in her academic career – she first publicly acknowledged it during a 2016 Smith College “Smith Talk.”
  • [02:49] “I started with a joke. Out of nowhere, an eager student in my class asked, have you seen Blazing Saddles?... The audience roared. It was the first time I’d ever said publicly that I was Richard Pryor’s daughter.” – Elizabeth Storter Pryor
• Why the secrecy?
  • She wanted her work to stand on its own, and felt ambivalence and protectiveness around her relationship with her father due to its complexities and the nature of fame.
  • [03:38] “I think I was the last person to know that this connection mattered...I kind of wanted to keep it to myself.” – Elizabeth

2. A Pivotal Classroom Moment

• The classroom incident: Early in her teaching, a white student quoted “Blazing Saddles,” using both a disparaging term for Chinese people and “the N word,” causing Elizabeth to freeze.
  • [05:22] “I did. I froze because I’d thought about how I wanted to negotiate the word in my own life as a teacher, whether I would use it or not in class. I decided I wouldn’t. But I never thought about what happens when it comes not getting uninvited.”
• Impact:
  • Led her to critically examine her understanding and teaching of the N-word, and served as a personal and professional catalyst.
  • [07:25] “I think about it as like a three pronged catalyst... the N word is kind of a geography of my life story.”

3. Personal Relationship with the N-word

• Family dynamics:
  • Raised by a white mother and Black father; her father admonished her never to let anyone call her the N-word, yet used it subversively in his work.
  • [08:14] “One of the first meaningful conversations I ever had with him as a little girl—He told me, don’t let nobody ever call you that.”
• Contradiction/Subversion:
  • Acknowledges Richard Pryor’s use of the N-word as protest and subversion—a way for Black artists to push back against white racism.
  • [09:19] “He was building on a black tradition of protest...always as a form of resistance and protest, not in the way that, you know, white racists had traditionally used the word.”

4. The Origin of “the N-word” as a Phrase

• Language shift:
  • Noted the term “the N-word” wasn't common until after the O.J. Simpson trial (mid-1990s). Prior to that, news anchors and others used the actual word on air.
  • [10:30] “My children grew up in an era where there is a surrogate phrase to replace it...the big turning point was the O.J. Simpson trial.”
  • [11:47] “There are newscasters, white newscasters on the news, just saying the N word. The actual word.”

5. Barbara Walters Interview: A Pivotal Televised Moment

• Recollection of 1979 interview:
  • Richard Pryor and Barbara Walters discuss the word on live TV; Walters admits discomfort, but says it anyway; Richard confronts her about it.
  • [12:21-13:22] “You said it and you said it very good. You’ve said it before.” – Richard Pryor to Barbara Walters
• Elizabeth’s childhood perspective:
  • [13:50] “I remember getting really stressed out during the conversation because my father’s being lighthearted and funny, but he’s also not. He’s being very direct with her.”
  • [14:32] “My dad was sort of doing this work by challenging her, but even so, he couldn’t say what somebody might say today, which is, please don’t say that. Right.”

6. Richard Pryor’s Life and Vulnerability

• Trauma and comedy:
  • Describes Richard’s difficult upbringing—brothel, abuse—and how he channeled this into groundbreaking, vulnerable comedy.
  • [16:47] “He put that all together in a way that like no one had ever seen before, where we were laughing almost to keep from crying.”
• Poem for his birthday:
  • At 11, Elizabeth wrote a poem that deeply moved her father—he kept it in his pocket for weeks.
  • [18:42] (Reads poem) “My daddy is the famous Richard Pryor. Yes. How famous? ... This is a story so sad and so true. He has trouble picking his friends and that makes him blue. My daddy.”

7. The Complexities of Family—Race, Belonging, and Betrayal

• Learning she wasn’t born in wedlock:
  • [30:38] “I was always under the impression that my father had been married four times and he said three during the interview...he told me in very ungentle way that he had never been married to my mother. It shattered my world.”
• Her mother’s use of the N-word:
  • During a heated argument, her white mother used the word against her—something she never forgot and never received an apology for.
  • [32:35] “Yes, my mother called me the N word.”
  • [32:58] “Never apologized for that...it was always there for me.”
  • [34:12] “When push comes to shove, somebody can say this. Now, I have to say my husband is white and I have never once, ever and never will ever worry that this is...in his mind. But for some people, like my mother, it was there.”

8. Being Richard Pryor’s Daughter—Inside and Outside the Spotlight

• Describes dual households:
  • Jewish/white side (Massachusetts/LA); Pryor’s world: boisterous, creative, chaotic, substance-fueled.
  • [25:16] “My mother used Yiddish words like my cushy grandmother who knitted socks...my father’s was...laughing around the...kitchen table, trying to get his attention, talking smack, loud, and telling jokes.”
• Seeking approval and forging identity:
  • Sought attention and validation as a creative and intellectual—eventually discovered her father valued her intellect deeply.
  • [27:12] “He basically gave me...‘stuff so I could awake blackly...’ He sent me the documentary on Malcolm X...He sent me the Last Poets, which actually used the N word—a ton of N words are scared of revolution.”

9. Legacy: Art, Vulnerability, and the N-word’s Evolution

• “JoJo Dancer, Your Life is Calling”:
  • Film about Richard’s life, his suicide attempt, vulnerability and how it was received.
  • [39:18] “He pulled me aside and said he had to tell me the truth about what happened, and he just was so tired. And he made that choice, immediately changed his mind...but then it was too late.”
• Africa and renouncing the N-word:
  • Richard’s transformative trip: after visiting Africa, he vowed never to use the word again.
  • [41:53] “I said, I ain’t gonna never call another black man, you know? Cause we never was. No, that’s a word used to describe our own wretchedness. And we perpetuate it now because it’s dead.”
  • [43:10] “I remember being so proud of it. I felt like we were finally, like, aligned in this particular way...” – Elizabeth

10. Hip Hop, Generational Change, and Teaching the Word

• How would Richard Pryor view hip hop’s use of the word?
  • [44:44] “I admire about that moment when he disavows the word is he said, this is for me. I’m not telling you what to do...the word had a function in black culture...it did take on a life of its own.”
• Teaching the word as a scholar:
  • [45:36] “Teaching the word is still incredibly difficult. The conversations are always hard. But I feel like it’s important because my students walk away knowing that this is not a conversation...about free speech. It’s really about...how we want to bring as many people as we can to the table.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Family Secrets and Being True to Herself
  • [04:32] “If I was going to own my father, it had to be organic and real. Like, I didn’t feel comfortable just bragging about it...It ended up making sense. I mean, I was a scholar of the N word, and so obviously is he.” – Elizabeth
• On Her Father’s Legacy and Pain
  • [16:47] “We were laughing almost to keep from crying.”
• On Her Mother’s Betrayal
  • [32:58] “My mother never apologized for that. And I brought it up...I just never forgot. It was always there for me...But my mother loved me so much. She really did.”
• On the Power of the N-word in Black Art
  • [09:19] “He was building on a black tradition of protest...not in the way that, you know, white racists had traditionally used the word.”
• On the Evolution of the Phrase “the N-word”
  • [10:30] “My children grew up in an era where there is a surrogate phrase to replace it...the big turning point was the O.J. Simpson trial.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:49] Elizabeth’s first public revelation of her famous lineage
• [05:22] Classroom incident as catalyst for deeper scholarship
• [12:21] Richard Pryor & Barbara Walters discuss the N-word on live TV
• [18:42] Elizabeth reads a childhood poem for her father’s birthday
• [25:16] Describing dual-family upbringings: Jewish/white side & Pryor household
• [30:38] Learning her parents were never married; impact on identity
• [32:35] Her mother uses the N-word in anger—permanent trauma
• [39:18] Confession about Richard’s suicide attempt and its aftermath
• [41:53] Richard Pryor renounces the N-word after Africa trip
• [45:36] Elizabeth on the challenges and purpose of teaching about the word

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Tone & Language

The conversation is deeply personal, reflective, at times humorous, and often somber. It holds space for ambiguity, pain, healing, and pride—mirroring the complexity of discussing race, family, and American history. Both Elizabeth and Tonya Moseley invite listeners into a vulnerable, honest exchange grounded in lived experience and intellectual curiosity.

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Conclusion

Elizabeth Storter Pryor’s interview is a powerful meditation on legacy, language, race, and reconciliation—within a family and the wider culture. The conversation traverses her personal journey as the daughter of an icon, inheritor of pain and power, and as a scholar working to bridge history and present practice around a word that wounds and transforms.

Book: “Something We Said: Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word, and Me” is available now.

Transcript

[Capella University Announcer]

This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

For more.

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Capella University's Flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella. Edu.

[Tonya Moseley]

This is FRESH air. I'm Tonya Moseley. About a decade ago, my guest, Elizabeth Storter Pryor, was on the road as one of the country's leading scholars of the most charged racial slur in American English. A history professor at Smith College, Pryor was giving lectures on the N word and the use of it during slavery, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement and the hip hop generation. But every night after the lectures ended, she'd have this weird reoccurring dream about her father saying something to her that she couldn't quite understand. Her father is the late Richard Pryor, the legendary comedian who in the 70s took this divisive word and made it the engine of his standup. Here he is in 1968 and his first comedy album with a bit about a black superhero.

[Richard Pryor]

I always thought, why didn't we have a hero, a black hero? And I always wanted to go to movies and see a black hero. I figured out maybe someday on television they'll have it, man, like you see on television. They come out, Look up in the sky. It's a crow. It's a bat. No, it's super.

[Tonya Moseley]

And yet, for all of Richard Pryor's influence on American comedy and music and culture, his daughter Elizabeth never told a single audience in her academic circles that Pryor was her father. Her new book, Something We Said, Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word and Me is part memoir, part history of a word that her father, late in his career, swore he'd never say again and that his daughter has been trying to understand ever since. Elizabeth, welcome to FRESH air.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

[Tonya Moseley]

You're a leading scholar in the N word. Your father is probably one of the most famous people ever to use the word in his standup. And here you are living this life not telling anyone that he was your father. I actually want you to read an excerpt from the book. The first time you told folks it was at a Smith Talk, and it was 2016, so not that long ago. Can I have you read that passage?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Sure. I started with a joke. Out of nowhere, an eager student in my class asked, have you seen Blazing Saddles? Then I leaned forward with a Psst. Which was funny because my father, who happens to be Richard Pryor, co wrote the movie. The audience roared. It was the first time I'd ever said publicly that I was Richard Pryor's daughter. I wasn't just revealing a family connection. My father was an essential part of the work I was doing. He used his platform to influence public discourse about American racism, and he used the N word to do it.

[Tonya Moseley]

Thank you for reading that. Why did it take you so long, Elizabeth, to tell folks your dad is Richard Pryor?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, that's a great question. I think I was the last person to know that this connection mattered. I kept feeling that feeling of coincidence. And the end of his life had been really hard and painful. I kind of wanted to keep it to myself. I didn't want to hear those recurring overtures that people made. They became overly intimate in asking me about the relationship. That was fraught and complicated. So I kept it close to the chest.

[Tonya Moseley]

I was also wondering, to be a child of a famous person and someone as famous as Richard Pryor, there has to also be an identity issue, too, right? You're your own person in academia, and he is known as a comedian. Was there ever that tension for you of wanting to make a name for yourself?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I felt like if I was going to own my father, it had to be organic and real. Like, I didn't feel comfortable just bragging about it, even though I should have. I mean, there's a lot to brag about there, but it just wasn't my nature. I wanted it to make sense if I was talking about him. And it's this. This is what this journey was all about. It ended up making sense. I mean, I was a scholar of the N word, and so obviously is he.

[Tonya Moseley]

I want to get to something that happened six years before that speech in your own classroom. You were a traveling historian, so the N word wasn't necessarily your subject early on, but you were teaching the Fugitive Slave act when a student quoted a line from Blazing Saddles, and you froze in that moment. Tell us a little bit about that moment.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Right. So this was a student I liked so much. I adored her. And I was, you know, teaching, and I was feeling like I was in. I had my vibe going in the classroom, and I asked, you know, she was, like, raising her hand, like so. And I was like, whatcha thinking? And she said, have you seen Blazing Saddles? And that threw me off because I thought she was about to out me as Richard Pryor's daughter. I didn't get that. She was actually. No, she was trying to connect to my lecture. So I moved on quickly and maybe a little rudely, to be honest. And Then she raised her hand again, and before I could even get a chance to call on her, she blurted out a line that quoted a disparaging word for people of Chinese descent. And also she said the actual n wor. And I did. I froze because I'd thought about how I wanted to negotiate the word in my own life as a teacher, whether I would use it or not in class. I decided I wouldn't. But I never thought about what happens when it comes not getting uninvited.

[Tonya Moseley]

The thing about this story, too, is that this class wasn't just all white. This student was a white student. You moved on from it. But there was a black student or black students in the class too. What was their reaction?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, I didn't really quite move on from it. I just kind of of like. Like a deer in the headlights stood in front of everybody and was like, you know, that was sort of my reaction. I was really worried about the black students. I felt like they were thinking I was letting them down because I was letting this happen. And it was just something I had never considered when I thought about teaching is what happens when the racism that we study and we teach comes in inadvertently into the space and has a real impact. How do I work through that in the moment?

[Tonya Moseley]

Yeah, that classroom moment was really important for you. How would you describe it? Was it like a seed for you? Was it the moment where things kind of started to break apart?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, it was definitely a catalyst. I think about it as like a three pronged catalyst. In that moment, I had to look at what was happening in me personally. I started thinking, do I even really know what this word means? Like, what just happened? Like, why? So I started thinking about the history and I started thinking about my teaching. And all of those pieces kind of happened at the same time around the N word. And I think deeply, starting to chart my own life story in a way, by the N word. Like, the N word is kind of a geography of my life story.

[Tonya Moseley]

Yeah. Because what. What had been your relationship up until that moment with the N word? Had you ever used it? Had you heard it in your life? What was your relationship to it?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, I had super complicated relationship to it. My mother was white, My father was obviously black. And Richard Pryor, he used it on stage. One of the first meaningful conversations I ever had with him as a little girl. He told me, don't let nobody ever call you that. And then he used it, and then his friends used it. And I was trying to figure that out, you know, so. And Then I would hear different reactions of people in my life using it. Like, for example, like kids on the schoolyard. But the teachers didn't tell them to. You know, they didn't get in trouble the way they did with other swear words. And yet, to me, this was the worst swear word because my father said, don't let anybody ever call you that. This is something you better knock somebody out if they use with you. And you've got to not only protect yourself, but other black people, too.

[Tonya Moseley]

He's telling you, don't let anybody ever call you that. And yet there is the. Some might say the hypocrisy or the contradiction that then he uses the word in a subversive way.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, I think it's really important to emphasize that when I'm saying that he used the word, that it was in the subversive way, that it was the language of protest, and that he was building on a black tradition of protest, that black people had used this word kind of as a, you know, a slap in the face to white racism. You know, we know how to take our punches and our knocks, and we're not afraid of this thing that you're trying to demean us as. And so bringing that use, the way that black people perceived of the N word onto stage was really powerful in the 1970s. People weren't really doing that, but always as a form of resistance and protest, not in the way that, you know, white racists had traditionally used the word.

[Tonya Moseley]

I should also say for the audience, we're saying the N word, but that was not a phrase that was even used back then. You know, we're doing that because we can't say the word on air. And we, you know, we don't generally say the word. But it's really interesting how that phrase, the N word, has become the way that we. We can describe it, which is fairly new, right?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, yeah, I had a really funny conversation with my daughter, who was born in 1998. And when she was in college, she went to a college about a half an hour from the college where I teach, Smith College. And she would come over and we'd do homework together. So I had a bunch of things pinned on the wall for this research, and one of them was, when did people first started saying the phrase the N word? And she said to me, mom, what do you mean, when did people first start using the phrase the N word? And I was like, what do you mean, when did people start? Because. And I asked my students, too, and they never dawned on them that this wasn't something I didn't grow up with, that it's that people either said the N word or they didn't. But they didn't say the phrase the N word. Right. But my children grew up in an era where there is a surrogate phrase to replace it. And that puts you in different relationship with that word and the meaning of that word. So it was really interesting. And I discovered that the big turning point was the O.J. simpson trial. Really? I mean, black activists had been using the phrase the N word in the late 80s and early 90s, but the O.J. simpson trial and some pre trial motions is what put that phrase on the mat.

[Tonya Moseley]

Yeah. It became then part of the lexicon

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

to use that phrase. So when I watched the news clippings from them, there are newscasters, white newscasters on the news, just saying the N word. The actual word. Before that, ABC News, you know, just saying it.

[Tonya Moseley]

There's actually an interview that was probably one of the more powerful interviews your dad ever did with Barbara Walters, 1979. They're sitting on a couch, very close together, almost eye to eye, and she asks him about the N word. And she does. She says, I don't know if I can say it. But then she says it. Let's listen.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

When you're on stage, you. You talk about. See, it's hard for me to say. I was gonna say, you talk about. I can't. You can say it. I can't say it.

[Richard Pryor]

I think it sounds.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah, but I feel so.

[Richard Pryor]

You said it.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Uncomfortable.

[Richard Pryor]

Well, good. You said it pretty good. This is not the first time you said it.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yes, it is.

[Richard Pryor]

Are we gonna end up liking each other after this? I don't know. I'm good. I'm glad it's still out there.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

What do you think?

[Richard Pryor]

I don't know. See, I like it like that. I like it like, you get to know me. Or you can choose for yourself whether you really like Richard or not.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Don't know.

[Richard Pryor]

There's nothing phony about.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I started out. Yeah.

[Richard Pryor]

I'm not laying it out tonight. Smooth and soft, where you can say, oh, I really like that guy. You know, that Richard's not really bad as I thought.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

No.

[Richard Pryor]

You say, I don't like the period.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

But you see, I don't. I don't say I don't like the period.

[Richard Pryor]

What do you say, baby?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Maybe I don't like you.

[Richard Pryor]

Well, hey, how about that? But not.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

But not because you're black.

[Richard Pryor]

You like me. You like me right now.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I like you.

[Richard Pryor]

I Know you do.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah. And right now, you like me. We're okay.

[Tonya Moseley]

That was Barbara Walters and Richard Pryor, 1979. Very pivotal interview. It's interesting. She says she doesn't know if she could say it, but she says it and then she says it again because there. There was not that phrase, the N word, to actually say the thing. You were in the room. It's interesting. I hear the people laughing. Take us to that room. You were how old?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I was 11 or 12.

[Tonya Moseley]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah. And they filmed the episode of My dad's Living Room. And, you know, they. They were doing this conversation. And I remember getting really stressed out during the conversation because my father's being lighthearted and funny, but he's also not. I mean, he's being very direct with her. You know, the fact that she says, I can't say that word. I don't say that word. He said, you just said it and you said it very good. You've said it before.

[Tonya Moseley]

12 years old, you're interpreting this. In hearing that exchange, you felt stressed. But did you also understand where you sat in the moment about the word?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I feel what's powerful about today is that I'm even allowed to question whether people use this word around me or not. And I think there was something. My dad was sort of doing this work by challenging her, but even so, he couldn't say what somebody might say today, which is, please don't say that. Right. Like what it conjured in that moment between them, which must have been powerful and real for him. I mean, she's a very, as I describe her, a very pretty, pink white lady in pink, smelling of pink, you know, and she uses this word with him in that moment. And I mean, he does a good job of kind of calling her out, but it's not. It's still light. Like, it's not like you really. You're doing work right now. You're being racist. Like, you actually are being racist saying this. And so I think that today I could do that. My dad didn't really have that language even as he was trying to create it.

[Tonya Moseley]

Your dad was really upset about that interview, though, with Barbara Walters.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

He was, he was. It was, you know, had the potential of being a life changing moment for him. And I think it was ultimately. But he revealed. Not just in that part, but he talked a lot about his childhood. He talked about doing drugs. He talked about openly.

[Tonya Moseley]

And he felt like he revealed too much.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

That's right.

[Tonya Moseley]

Your father is famous, though, for being so vulnerable. He was born in Peoria he was raised in a brothel. His mother worked in the brothel. He watched his father beat his mother. He was abused. His mother left when he was 10. And he put that all together in a way that like no one had ever seen before, where we were laughing almost to keep from crying. When did you first come to see or understand that your father had these broken parts of him?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Honestly, I think it was partially in the pro. I knew it, of course. I've heard the comedy. You know, people would tell me, you know, your father was raised in a brothel. I don't remember him ever saying that to me. I mean, I certainly wasn't introduced to my great grandmother. You know, this is mama, she's a madam, she runs a brothel, right? This is my great grandmother. You know, she cooked great food and was mean. Like, that's what I knew about her. But I do think in part it was the process of writing this book. Like there was something about my memories that had been locked in childhood. I don't know if this makes sense to people, but I had only ever come in contact with them as, like the 11 year old. And it was as a woman, as a professor, as a mother, myself, that I came to this to understand, like, holy moly. Like, it's not the sex work. Because, like, I think there are a lot of people who are raised around sex work and, you know, have their stories to tell as children. But it was the vulnerability of that for him, that he didn't know how to navigate it. And the brilliance of being able to tell those stories to people and make them funny. And not just funny, like laugh at me, but also universal. Like people could relate, like, oh, about parenting. Like, he described his father as an 11 o' clock n word because you had to be home by 11:00 clock even though the party didn't start till 11:30. You know, like, these are, you know, everybody could relate to that. But he was describing a very harsh and scary man when he did it.

[Tonya Moseley]

There's this tender moment where you were 11 years old and there's this poem that you written for his 38th birthday. He asked you to read it to the family. And can I have you read it now?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Sure. My daddy is the famous Richard Pryor. Yes. How famous? How famous? Of course I love him and I'll always be proud, but I really get sick of all the crowds. I think he spends all his day long trying to help someone who started out wrong. He never seems happy, though. Always so sad. Now they remember him, that he's cool and he's bad. And he's he's got the money to do what he wants. Some people want the money to do what they want. They hurt him. They slap him inside out. But that doesn't matter because he's Richard Pryor. No doubt it doesn't matter. It's the money that counts. This is a story so sad and so true. He has trouble picking his friends and that makes him blue. My daddy.

[Tonya Moseley]

Oh, that's my guest, Elizabeth Pryor, reading a poem she wrote for her dad, Richard Pryor, when she was 11 years old. He was so moved by it, he carried it in his pocket for weeks. You now, as a woman reading this and knowing the totality of who he was. Now through this new lens, why do you think he was so moved from it, aside from the fact that you were his daughter?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I don't know. I'm thinking that I haven't really thought about this before, but I feel like my father had a superpower of really being able to see people, really being able to see them and understand them, you know, And I feel like maybe he felt seen too, and that was important to him as a person who could see.

[Tonya Moseley]

Let's take a short break. Our guest today is scholar and author Elizabeth Storter Pryor. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley and this is FRESH air.

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[Tonya Moseley]

Today, he told you this story of the first time he got a laugh from his family.

[Richard Pryor]

Yeah.

[Tonya Moseley]

Can you share? Can you share that?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

He told me a story about being five years old, and I don't know why, but he's wearing a little cowboy suit, and he was in front of the house, and all the people were there, the, you know, his grandmother, all the sex workers, and his father and his uncle. And he slipped in dog poop, and they just started cracking up. And so he got up and he made himself slip in it again, and they couldn't stop laughing. And so he did it again and again. And it's pretty painful to think of the lengths that he felt that he needed to go to get their adoration and attention.

[Tonya Moseley]

What do you take from that story?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, I take that. And also, you know, just his drive to be funny. I asked him, did you know you were funny? And he said, you know, I knew little else but that I knew.

[Tonya Moseley]

You didn't actually meet your dad till you were six years old, and so there's a lot that you didn't know about their relationship leading up to it. But your mom wrote him a letter about you, and that's how the meeting came about. Yeah. Do you remember that first meeting?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Oh, yes, I remember. We were in Newark, New Jersey. My first time flying on a plane that I remembered, and I come to this hotel room, and my mom is acting kind of. I don't know. My mom was very in control of herself a lot of the times, but she was acting nervous. And we knocked on the door of a hotel room, and he opened in a towel, and I was like, this is my father. Like, not only do I get a father, but I get this guy. What? Like, I just felt like I won. I loved him immediately, instantly. His eyes were so warm, and he was so handsome, and I just fell head over heels.

[Tonya Moseley]

You saw your face in him?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I saw my face. I saw my face. I saw, like, everybody around me was white. Really? And nobody ever said. Ever said to me, you're different because you're not white in my family. But it was there, and I saw him, and I was like, wait a minute. There's something here between us. And I just. Yeah. And that happened more and more, even though there were some things about him that I couldn't relate to at all, of course, his childhood and whatnot. But there was some way he created a bridge immediately between us and invited me to cross over.

[Tonya Moseley]

Can you describe the differences in households? So majority of the time you're raised in Massachusetts, a Jewish family, Jewish customs, and then you'd go see your dad.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Right. So my mom actually lived in la, but the Jewish customs were there. Yeah, I mean, we did the Jewish holidays. She shopped at Lohman's and Marshalls. We had certain values. My mother used Yiddish words like my cushy grandmother who knitted socks. You know, like, that was like one part of my family. And then my father's was, you know, he'd just have all these people, like, loud and laughing around the. He had two and a half acres, a swimming pool, a guest house, a tennis court, and everybody was around the kitchen table, you know, and trying to get his attention, talking, you know, talking smack, loud and telling jokes and hoping that my father was going to be impressed by them. I think now, looking back, there were drugs around the house, alcohol. My mother didn't drink or use drugs. There was a lot of confusion, like, you know, not knowing who's there and who matters. And, you know, it was hard to get my father's attention. He was also all over the place. You know, he's on stage, he was in his head, he was depressed, he was, you know, he was down, he was up. I mean, you know, he was traveling. So people did what they could to try to get his attention. I think my siblings and I would all agree that that was a standard experience growing up in his house.

[Tonya Moseley]

Were you vying for his attention as his child?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Always.

[Tonya Moseley]

What were the ways you would try to get it?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I wanted to be smart enough and creative enough, and I would try to show off. I did theater, I did improv. He would come to my plays and come to my performances. Tried to get intellectual with him, like when I was in college. And he gave me, like, I had a black awakening. And he basically, like, sent me some stuff so I could awake blackly, I

[Tonya Moseley]

guess, when he got to college. Stuff. Like what? Like books and stuff?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah. He sent me the documentary on Malcolm X that had been filmed, I think, in 1972, and then he sent me the Last Poets, which actually used the N word. A ton of N words are scared of revolution, you know, to listen to. And I did. I felt like he was inviting me into a secret world, and I wanted to go there.

[Tonya Moseley]

But there was this moment where, as you were trying, you were trying to get his attention. You're trying to be these things, and you initially wanted him to see you as a creative, but it sounds like he actually did see you as an intellectual, but at the time, you didn't realize that that was a currency. You didn't realize that that was a virtue that he valued in you. When did to understand that writing the book. Oh, really?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah.

[Tonya Moseley]

Throughout your entire life with him, you didn't really see that he felt that way?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Not really. Not really. And people would tell me all the time, he's so proud of you that you went to college. Your dad was always proud of that. He was so smart in his way and didn't go to college that I kind of thought he thought college was kind of like an indulgence. But I do remember at the end of his life, when he couldn't speak anymore, I would go over and read from the narrative of Frederick Douglass to him. And I could see that he was feeling proud in those moments of Frederick Douglass and of being read Frederick Douglass by me. Yeah.

[Tonya Moseley]

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Elizabeth Storter Pryor, a history professor at Smith College and the daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor. Her new book something We Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word and Me. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH air.

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This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover [e-mail] this message comes from NPR sponsor Harry Potter, the Official Film podcast from HBO Max. 25 years after the first Harry Potter movie came out, it's the perfect time to rediscover these beloved films. The Harry Potter Official Film Podcast brings you behind the scenes, starting with the philosopher's stone. Uncover hidden details and hear interviews with the people who brought the wizarding world to life. Watch on HBO Max or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana. Your time is worth more than a waiting game. Carvana gives you a transparent offer for your car in minutes and picks it up from your door. Sell your car [e-mail] Pickup fees may apply.

[Tonya Moseley]

There's something life changing that happened to you after that Barbara Walters interview. You wanted to clarify during the interview that he had said he had only been married a certain amount of times, three times. And you corrected him and then he corrected you.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah. I was always under the impression that my father had been married four times and he said three during the interview. And he told me in very ungentle way that he had never been married to My mother, it shattered my world. Only because they both had told me that I had the impression from both of them that that was the case. And I actually recently found a news clipping from, like, I don't know, it must be the mid-70s or something, where my father says it in a, you know, a newspaper article or something that he, you know, his three wives, his three exes, but he wasn't, in fact, married to my mom. And that was earth shattering.

[Tonya Moseley]

It was earth shattering because at the time as well, I mean, we have a different view today. We may think, like, it's not a big deal, but back then it felt like maybe what I think it felt

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

like I didn't exist in a way, and that maybe I wasn't really his child. Not that I wasn't. And I don't mean this about paternity, something else like that I wouldn't be part of the family or whatever, something like that. I have to say, God bless my father made a lot of mistakes, but never once made me feel that way. Made a lot of mistakes, but not that one.

[Tonya Moseley]

You went home and confronted your mother and you guys got into a big fight. And this fight, I mean, this was the fight of all fights, right?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yes. My mother was a fighter. She was a fighter, if nothing else. And she went for the jugular if she was losing. And she did that day, too.

[Tonya Moseley]

Yeah, your mom pulled out that N word on you.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah. Yes, my mother called me the N word.

[Tonya Moseley]

How do you hold this woman who cared for you is your mom and cared for you in all the ways that a mother cares, but then also had this blind spot that when she was in a rage, she could say it and said it to her own child.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I never understood, I have to say, till her dying day. My mother never apologized for that. And I brought it up. I gave her plenty of chances because I brought it up a lot because I just never forgot. Was one of those. I mean, I know, obviously, how could you forget it? But it was never far away from my interactions with her. It was always there for me. You know, when I met my husband and we had our, you know, early pillow talk, that was, you know, that's the story that came up. It was always there, and it was hard to reconcile because what's funny, and I hope readers will get this, is that my mother loved me so much. She really did.

[Tonya Moseley]

I think that's clear. But I was just wondering from you what that tells you about the limits that maybe white people, even in close proximity, even having a black child, understanding race and racism. And the knife that that word can cause the knife in the wound.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah. I hear this all the time from people, people who don't want to be in interracial relationships or don't want to have those even interracial friendships because they feel like when push comes to shove, somebody can say this to you. Now I have to say my husband is white and I have never once, ever and never will ever worry that this is even within the fragments of his mind. I know it's not, but for some people, like my mother, it was there.

[Tonya Moseley]

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Elizabeth Storter Pryor, a history professor at Smith College and the daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor. Her new book, Something We Said, Richard, a Notorious Word and me. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH air.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover [e-mail] this message comes from NPR sponsor Harry Potter, the Official Film Podcast from HBO Max. 25 years after the first Harry Potter movie came out, it's the perfect time to rediscover these beloved films. The Harry Potter Official Film Podcast brings you behind the scenes, starting with the philosopher's stone. Uncover hidden details and hear interviews with the people who brought the wizarding world to life. Watch on HBO Max or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Brazil used to have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. People called it the country of the future.

[Tonya Moseley]

There are songs oh, Brazil, El Pais

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

do Futur, because it seems like we

[Tonya Moseley]

have it all, man.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

But then the music stopped on the Planet Money podcast. A lot of countries these days aren't rich, they aren't poor. They're just kind of stuck in the middle. Why is that? Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tonya Moseley]

Was there a reason why you didn't listen to much of your father's comedy before adulthood?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

So I was like 8 or 9 right when his first Grammy Award winning album came out. I did sneak a listen to it as a child, but I had no idea what it meant. But as I got older, you know, a lot of I mean, I saw Superman and the Wiz and, you know, the Toy, you know, these kind of more child geared creative productions of his. But his comedy and this is funny, I did see him even perform it, but just knowing his comedy, it felt like everybody who came up, to me, I grew up. There are going to be people who are listening to this who have no idea who Richard Pryor is.

[Tonya Moseley]

That's true. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Okay. And I grew up, and that was, like, nobody. Because everybody knew who he was, and they loved him, and they thought that because of the vulnerability on stage and because of that work, that he was their friend, and they probably were. And my dad loved that. He told me, you know, the only thing to worry about is when people stop doing that. Right. But for me, I wanted to know him in a way that everybody else did not, and that was as a private person. And so knowing his comedy felt like it was pulling me away from knowing him as a private man.

[Tonya Moseley]

I also have to know how you felt about JoJo Dancer, your life Is Calling, which was a film that your dad wrote about his life. And he lays it all out. He lays it pretty bare. Do you remember when you first saw it?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I do. I came home from college to see it, and I remember being so powerfully moved by it because I thought, you know, this is, of course, after my father had this horrible episode. I don't know how to describe it, but where he burned, like, two thirds of his body quite severely. They. We didn't know if he was going to live while. While using drugs. And this was sort of his kind of reckoning with what brought him to that moment, because it was only years later that he told me that he was actually. It was actually a suicide attempt, which I didn't know at the time. The family described it as the accident, which is why I struggle for the words human now. Right.

[Tonya Moseley]

The story had been publicly that he was freebasing on cocaine or drugs, and there was a mishap. There was an accident, and there was an explosion. But he sat you down to tell you that that wasn't actually true.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He pulled me aside and said he had to tell me the truth about what happened, and he just was so tired. And he made that choice, immediately changed his mind, you know, the minute, you know, the fire hit his body. But then it was too late.

[Tonya Moseley]

Did he ever talk about. Cause, you know, so I rewatched it. I watched it as a child, I'll tell you, Elizabeth. And I think it was one of the most traumatic things of my life because I had such a parasocial relationship with him because he had done so many children's programs. And so then to see his life in totality as I was really scarred by that. And I've not watched it since, but I watched it the other night.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Oh, okay.

[Tonya Moseley]

And it was so revealing. It was so vulnerable and brave to share the dark parts of himself. But it was universally panned at the time. Did he ever talk about how he felt about that?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

He didn't, but I saw him decline. So I think the movie came out, I'm guessing 1986, right now. He was also diagnosed with Ms. In 1986. So it was, like, kind of coming together. But I think about this vulnerability that you're talking about. What is it like to flay yourself open? And sometimes. I mean, when he did live in concert in 1979, it was universally beloved. It was the comedic gold they described it as. He was, you know, the voice of a generation. And then just a few years later, also putting your life on the line creatively, and it's panned. And what is it like when you are inside out like that and, you know, susceptible to the criticism of other people, like, on your life? And I. I know that's what he did for a living, so, of course, you know, he was public, but I. I do think about that a lot. I will see his work and see how vulnerable he is in a moment. And I was like, ah, that's why it was so hard for him.

[Tonya Moseley]

There's a pivotal moment in your father's career where he visits Africa, the continent. He goes to several places. Kenya and Nairobi. And this is 1982, that he comes back and he decides to get on stage and talk about this experience and told the world what he decided regarding the use of the N word. Listen.

[Richard Pryor]

And I was sitting in the hotel, and a voice said to me, said, look around. What do you see? And I said, I see all colors of people doing everything, you know? And the voice said, do you see any? I said, no. I said, you know why? Because there aren't any. And it hit me like a shot.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I was sitting there.

[Richard Pryor]

I said, yeah, I've been here three weeks. I haven't even said it. I haven't even thought it. And it made me say, oh, my God. I've been wrong. I've been wrong. I got to regroup. I mean, I said, I ain't gonna never call another black man, You know? Cause we never was. No, that's a word that's used to describe our own wretchedness. And we perpetuate it now because it's dead. Mm.

[Tonya Moseley]

That was Richard Pryor in 1982. And, oh, gosh, Elizabeth. He built his career on that word. And here he is on this stage saying, I have grown. I have learned something new. What did that moment mean for you?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Oh, I remember being so proud of it. I felt like. I felt like we were finally, like, aligned in this particular way, because for me, as a biracial person, the N word, I always knew it wasn't my word, certainly the way black people used it with each other. And I longed for that. Not that the word is so great, but there's something happening when black people are using it together that is great.

[Tonya Moseley]

Did you ever try?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I did. I did. I did with my black friends, and they were like, do not do that anymore. You do not have the flow. You must stop. But I felt. Yeah, I was proud of it. I felt proud of it.

[Tonya Moseley]

Did you guys ever talk about it?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

We didn't talk about my feelings about it, but my father did tell me. He made a point of telling me so in that way, I think it was important for him, but not necessarily about what it meant when he was on stage doing it, because that felt like it was for all black people to me.

[Tonya Moseley]

You know, he started to get sick around the time that hip hop really was making its ascension. But, you know, it was being used. The word was becoming part of the vernacular. What do you think he would think about the next generation in the way that it was used? I mean, because he also didn't get a chance to see, say, someone like Kendrick Lamar win a Pulitzer Prize, which is a whole nother level of acknowledgment to the purpose of the use of the word, beyond it just being a filler word, you know?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Right. I mean, I'm not gonna pretend to know what my father would think, but I will say that one of the things I admire about that moment when he disavows the word is he said, this is for me. I'm not telling you what to do, you know, this is for me. And I think there is a piece where he understood that the word had a function in black culture. He does talk about, though, as an artist, like, losing control of what the word was doing. Like he was trying to do something good by doing that. And then it did take on a life of its own.

[Tonya Moseley]

How has teaching this word changed for you now that you've gone through this process?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Teaching the word is still incredibly difficult, I have to say. The conversations are always hard. But I feel like it's important because my students walk away knowing that this is not a conversation, like I said, about free speech. It's really about how we interact how we want to bring as many people as we can to the table. And if we do that, that means that we're going to be thinking about who we're sitting at the table with and how things will impact them.

[Tonya Moseley]

Elizabeth Storter Pryor, thank you so much for this conversation and thank you for this book.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

[Tonya Moseley]

Elizabeth Storter Pryor, her new book is called Something We Richard A Notorious Word and Me, tomorrow on FRESH air, novelist Maggie o', Farrow, she wrote the book Hamnet and co wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. She has a new book called Land, about a father and son mapping 19th century Ireland after the devastation of the great famine. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram prfreshair. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CB Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show with Terry Gross. I'm Tonya Moseley.

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[Tonya Moseley]

Today, a grassy green lawn might look nice, but it's going to eat up

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

resources like drinking water and the gas

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you put in the mower.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

You can do a solid for the

[Capella University Announcer]

environment by ditching even just some of

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

your lawn and replacing it with a wildlife friendly garden.

[Capella University Announcer]

Life Kit has tips to get you started.

[Tonya Moseley]

Green thumb required. Listen to the Life Kit podcast in

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the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.