If your memories of Bill Cosby begin with the Cliff Huxtable years and NBC’s 1980s blockbuster hit “The Cosby Show,” it’s likely you can’t fully appreciate the positive influences he had on race relations in America.

In the 1960s, deadly riots erupted in the urban centers of many major American cities as the civil rights movement gained steam and became increasingly confrontational and violent. African American leaders, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, were assassinated. Little girls died when black churches were bombed. White college students and others were murdered trying to help African Americans register to vote in the deep South.

While all that was happening, Bill Cosby became the most popular comedian in the country with a brand of non-threatening, slice-of-life humor that transcended the atmosphere of distrust, acrimony and hate.

While America was burning, Cosby won five consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Performance from 1965-69 for a string of hilarious albums including “I Started Out as a Child,” “Why is There Air?” and “To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With.”

It was in 1965 that he became the first African-American co-star of a major network television program when he and Robert Culp played a pair of dapper, understated international spies in “I Spy.” For his work, Cosby won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He went on to be the first black lead actor of a network situation comedy when he starred as Chet Kincaid, a high school teacher and coach, from 1969-71 in “The Bill Cosby Show.”

It does not diminish the legacy of African American leaders of the time – the men and women who were risking their lives to achieve the rights guaranteed in the Constitution – to say that Cosby was a reassuring figure to many whites who were frightened, confused and bewildered by the social upheaval around them.

Cosby’s humor emphasized what Americans had in common regardless of race, creed, color or sex. For that reason, his presence offered a ray of hope that King’s dream might someday be realized.

For his lifetime of work, Cosby was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1991; received a Kennedy Center Honor for contributions to American culture in 1998; received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to television in 2002; and was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2009.

Because Cosby has been such a revered figure, it is difficult for many to grasp the tragic reality that the man who famously hawked Jell-O pudding in our living rooms could really be a moral degenerate who preyed on women for sexual gratification and a sense of power. (Cosby has never been charged in connection with any of the allegations.)

For more than a decade, Cosby was able to contain the accusations. He did so largely by exploiting the immense amount of goodwill people and authorities had for him by virtue of his status as an entertainer and a true pioneer in race relations. When his victims dared speak out, they were ignored or told to go away. But his charade came to an end this week when the list of accusers increased to double digits and their detailed allegations of repeated abuse took on an undeniable air of authenticity.

The 72-year-old Cosby was in the midst of a comeback, but now several projects, including a new NBC sitcom, have been canceled.

It’s sad that a man who was so respected – revered, even – by so many for so long will mostly be remembered as a creep. That he continues to deny the allegations only compounds the debacle.

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