Existing comment:
Eldridge Cleaver, 1935-1998
Having grown up in poverty in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Eldridge Cleaver spent much of his early life serving time in jail for a number of offenses, including rape. By the mid-1960s, however, his gifts for articulating the grievances of African Americans had drawn him into the radical wing of the black civil rights movement. Soon he was a leading spokesperson for the militant Black Panthers, who advocated arming for self-defense against the white establishment.
His most significant contribution to the cause was a collection of fiery essays Soul on Ice, which became one of the most widely read statements of black anger in America after it was published in 1968. That same year, an armed confrontation with police drove Cleaver into exile, and after his return to the United States in 1975, his outlook grew increasingly more conservative.
Steven Shames, 1968 |