Eldridge Cleaver

Eldridge Cleaver
Eldridge Cleaver in 1968
Born	August 31, 1935(1935-08-31) Wabbaseka, Arkansas
Died	May 1, 1998(1998-05-01) (aged 62) Pomona, California
Organization	Black Panther Party Peace and Freedom Party Republican Party (United States)
Religion	Mormon (After 1983)

Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party and a writer. His book Soul On Ice is a collection of essays praised by The New York Times Book Review at the time of its publication as "brilliant and revealing."

Cleaver was a prominent member of the Black Panthers, having the titles Minister of Information, and Head of the International Section of the Panthers while in exile in Cuba and Algeria. As editor of the official Panther's newspaper, Cleaver's influence on the direction of the Party was rivaled only by founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Cleaver and Newton eventually fell out with each other, resulting in a split which weakened the Party. He later turned to the right, becoming an LDS Church member and a Republican Party member.

Biography

Born in Wabbaseka, Arkansas, as a child Cleaver moved with his family to Phoenix and then to Los Angeles. In 1967 he married Kathleen Neal Cleaver; they divorced in 1987. They had a son, Ahmad Maceo Eldridge Cleaver, and a daughter, Joju Younghi Cleaver.

As a teenager he was involved in petty crime and spent time in detention centers. In 1957 Cleaver was arrested for committing rape and was convicted of assault with intent to murder.^[1]

Soul on Ice

Main article: Soul On Ice

While in prison, he wrote a number of philosophical and political essays, first published in Ramparts magazine and then in book form as Soul on Ice.^[2] In the essays, Cleaver traces his own development from a "supermasculine menial" to a radical black liberationist, and the essays became highly influential in the black power movement.

In the most controversial part of the book, Cleaver acknowledges committing acts of rape, stating that he initially raped black women in the ghetto "for practice", and then embarked on the rape of white women. Cleaver refers to the serial rape of white women as "an insurrectionary act."^[2]

The essays in Soul on Ice are divided in four thematic sections:^[3] "Letters from Prison", describing Cleaver's experiences with and thoughts on crime and prisons; "Blood of the Beast", discussing race relations and promoting black liberation ideology; "Prelude to Love - Three Letters", love letters written to Cleaver's attorney, Beverly Axelrod; and "White Woman, Black Man", on gender relations, black masculinity, and sexuality.

Black Panther Party

Eldridge Cleaver was released from prison in 1966, after which he joined the Oakland-based Black Panther Party, serving as Minister of Information, or spokesperson. What initially attracted Cleaver to the Panthers as opposed to other prominent groups was their commitment to armed struggle.^[4]

In 1967, Eldridge Cleaver, along with Marvin X, Ed Bullins and Ethna Wyatt, formed the Black House political/cultural center in San Francisco. Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure, Sarah Webster Fabio, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Avotcja, Reginald Lockett, Emory Douglas, Samuel Napier, Bobby Hutton, Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale were Black House regulars.^[5]

He was a Presidential candidate in 1968 on the ticket of the Peace and Freedom Party.^[6] Cleaver and his running mate Judith Mage received 36,571 votes (0.05%). Later that year, he was shot during an ambush of Oakland police in which fellow Black Panther member Bobby Hutton was killed and two police officers were injured. Charged with attempted murder, he jumped bail to flee to Cuba and later went to Algeria. Following Timothy Leary's Weather Underground assisted prison escape, Leary stayed with Cleaver in Algeria; however, Cleaver placed Leary under "revolutionary arrest" as a counter-revolutionary for promoting drug use. Cleaver later left Algeria and spent time in France.

Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton eventually fell out with each other over the necessity of armed struggle as a response to COINTELPRO and other actions by the government against the Black Panthers and other radical groups.^[7] Cleaver advocated the escalation of armed resistance into urban guerilla warfare, while Newton suggested the best way to respond to was to put down the gun, which he felt alienated the Panthers from the rest of the Black community, and focus on more pragmatic reformist activity.^[8][9]

Cleaver returned to the United States in 1975, became a 'born again' Christian and subsequently renounced his ultra-radical past. Legal wrangling ended in his being sentenced to probation for assault. In 1980, he said that he had led the Panther group on a deliberate ambush of the police officers, thus provoking the shoot-out.^[10]

Soul on Fire

Playing on the title of Soul on Ice, Cleaver published Soul on Fire in 1978.^[11] Cleaver made several claims regarding his exile in Algeria: he claimed he was supported by regular stipends from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which the United States was then bombing. Cleaver stated that he was followed by other former criminals turned revolutionaries, many of whom hijacked planes to get to Algeria. Apparently, the Algerians expected Cleaver to keep his proteges in line, which he described as increasingly difficult as their increasing numbers stretched his North Vietnamese allowance to the breaking point. Cleaver organized a stolen car ring, stealing cars in Europe to sell in Africa. Around this time Cleaver discovered his wife had a lover; the lover was subsequently murdered. Cleaver eventually fled Algeria out of fear for his life. He could no longer control his proteges and the Algerian police were cracking down on them. He subsequently lived underground for a time in France. Cleaver became a "born again" Christian during his year of isolation, while living underground. He later led a short-lived revivalist ministry called Eldridge Cleaver Crusades.^{[citation needed]}

Later life

In the early 1980s, Cleaver became disillusioned with what he saw as the commercial nature of mainstream evangelical Christianity and examined alternatives, including Sun Myung Moon's campus ministry organization CARP, and Mormonism.^[12] Cleaver was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on December 11, 1983,^[13][14] periodically attended regular services, lectured by invitation at LDS gatherings, and was a member of the church in good standing at the time of his death in 1998.

By the 1980s, Cleaver had become a conservative Republican. He appeared at various Republican events and spoke at a California Republican State Central Committee meeting regarding his political transformation. In 1986 Cleaver embarked on an unsuccessful campaign to win the United States Senate seat held by Democratic incumbent Sen. Alan Cranston, as he received less than two percent of the vote in the Republican Party primary.^{[citation needed]}

In 1988, Cleaver was placed on probation for burglary and was briefly jailed later in the year after testing positive for cocaine.^[15] He entered drug rehabilitation for a stated crack cocaine addiction two years later, but was arrested for possession by Oakland and Berkeley Police in 1992 and 1994. Shortly after his final arrest, he moved to Southern California, falling into poor health.^[15]

Death

Eldridge Cleaver died at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center on May 1, 1998. His family asked that the hospital not reveal the cause of death, although he was known to have diabetes and prostate cancer.^[16] He is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California.

References

1. ^ New York Times Obituary
2. ^ ^{a b} Cleaver, Eldridge (1968, 1991). Soul on ice. Dell/Delta. ISBN 0-385-33379-X. 
3. ^ Andrews, William L., Frances Smith. Foster, and Trudier Harris. The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York: Oxford UP, 1997
4. ^ Cleaver, Eldridge (1969). POST-PRISON WRITINGS & SPEECHES. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-3944-2323-4. 
5. ^ Baraka, Amiri Baraka (1984, 1986, 1997). The Autobiography of Leroi Jones. Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 1-55652-231-2. 
6. ^ Former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver Dies at 62, by Jenifer Warren, The Los Angeles Times, 5/2/98
7. ^ Jim Vanderwall, Ward Churchill (1990, 2002). The COINTELPRO Papers. South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-648-8. 
8. ^ George Katsiaficas, Kathleen Cleaver (2001). Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92784-6. 
9. ^ David Horowitz, Peter Collier (1989, 1990, 1996). Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the 60’s. Free Press. ISBN 978-0684826417. 
10. ^ Kate Coleman, 1980, "Souled Out: Eldridge Cleaver Admits He Ambushed Those Cops." New West Magazine.
11. ^ Cleaver, Eldridge (1978). Soul on Fire. Waco, Texas: Word Books. 
12. ^ "One Journey Home: Eldridge Cleaver's Spiritual Path" by Linda Neale EarthLight Magazine #50, Spring 2004
13. ^ Shows date of the baptism of Leroy Eldridge Cleaver, https://new.familysearch.org
14. ^ "From Black Panther to Mormon: The Case of Eldridge Cleaver" at Mormonmatters.org
15. ^ ^{a b} Taylor, Michael (May 2, 1998). "Ex-Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver Dies". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1998/05/02/MN2755.DTL. Retrieved 2011-8-26. 
16. ^ CNN Obituary

External links

	Biography portal
	African American portal

• Cleaver, Eldridge. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07
• From Muslim to Mormon: Eldridge Cleaver's Rhetorical Crusade
• Guide to the Eldridge Cleaver Papers at The Bancroft Library
• PBS Frontline Interview with Eldridge Cleaver
• Reason Magazine Interview with Eldridge Cleaver

Preceded by No one (Party not yet commissioned)

Peace and Freedom Party Presidential candidate 1968 (lost)

Succeeded by Benjamin Spock

Persondata
Name	Cleaver, Eldridge
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	August 31, 1935
Place of birth	Wabbaseka, Arkansas
Date of death	May 1, 1998
Place of death	Pomona, California