Henry Zebrowski

Dean Martin was fond of picking up the diminutive Sammy Davis Jr.,

saying that he would like to thank the NAACP for this wonderful trophy.

He was a prop.

Sammy Davis Jr.

had also married a white woman, and his interracial marriage had caused quite the stir amongst the establishment.

So when Sammy Davis Jr.

entered the 1960s, he was seen as too forward-thinking for the whites, but because of his association with the Rat Pack, he was seen as too much of an Uncle Tom for black radicals.

No, I mean, he joined Martin Luther King Jr.

at the March on Washington.

And in Selma, he was on the KKK's kill list.

But the black power radicals of the 60s, they saw Sammy Davis Jr.

as an assimilationist, and they were none too fond of him marrying a white woman either.

So after divorcing his wife for unrelated reasons, Davis chased acceptance in the black community by growing his hair into a big afro, buying a few designer dashikis, and dating a black woman named AltaVis Gore, whom he eventually married.

Now, it must be said at this point that Sammy Davis Jr.

had an insatiable sexual appetite.

And AltaVis Gore was fully accepting when Davis told her that the only way it was going to work is if they had an open marriage.

Which is satanic.

But despite his efforts, Sammy Davis Jr.

still spent the 60s as a pariah amongst his own people and a prop amongst the whites.

Plus, because he wasn't a songwriter, he didn't have any money from royalties.