Eldridge Cleaver

Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was a prominent American civil rights leader and activist, beginning as prominent member of the Black Panther Party.

Born in Wabbaseka, Arkansas, Cleaver's family moved to Phoenix and then to Los Angeles. As a teenager he became involved in petty crime, and in 1957 was convicted of assault with intent to murder. While in prison, he wrote a book of essays, Soul on Ice, which was influential in the black power movement and is now considered a classic by many people. In the book, Cleaver infamously acknowledges raping several white women, which he defended as "an insurrectionary act." He also admitted that he began his career as a rapist by "practicing on black girls in the ghetto." He maintains that his criminal actions have nothing to do with the views expressed in the book. Cleaver was released from prison in 1966, after which he joined the Oakland-based Black Panther Party and served as its Minister of Information (spokesperson).

He was a candidate for President in 1968 on the ticket of the Peace and Freedom Party. That same year, he was injured in a conflict between the Panthers and Oakland police. Charged with attempted murder, he jumped bail to flee to Algeria – where he was joined by Timothy Leary. Cleaver placed Leary under "revolutionary arrest" as a counter-revolutionary, although Leary was later released. Cleaver later left Algeria, and spent time in both Cuba, and France.

In 1975, Cleaver modeled anatomically fitted men's pants he designed featuring a "Cleaver sleeve" which was a penis sheath that was basically a sock protruding from the front of a pair of pants (see "Eldridge Cleaver Models his hot new pants" in Rolling Stone issue 197 dated October 9, 1975). The sleeve accommodated free movement and size changes of the enclosed male organ.

Soul on Fire

In his 1978 book Soul on Fire Cleaver revealed several surprising aspects of his exile in Algeria:

• Cleaver was supported by regular stipends from the Republic of North Vietnam, with which the USA was then at war.
• Cleaver was followed by other former criminals, turned revolutionaries. Many of whom hi-jacked planes to get to Algeria. The Algerians expected Cleaver to keep his proteges in line. Which he described as becoming increasingly difficult, as their increasing number stretched his North Vietnamese allowance to the breaking point. Cleaver organized a stolen car ring to employ his revolutionary proteges. They would steal cars in Europe, and sell them in Africa.
• Cleaver fled Algeria out of fear for his life. He could no longer control his proteges. Additionally, the Algerian police were cracking down on them. There had been gun battles. So he abandoned his proteges, and went to live underground in France.
• Cleaver experienced a Christian rebirth – became "born again" during his year of isolation, while living underground.
• Soul on Fire contains the controversial assertion that Cleaver interpreted Christianity as authorizing a husband to beat his wife to discipline her.

Return to America

Cleaver returned to the United States in 1975, and subsequently renounced the Black Panthers. Legal wrangling ended in his being sentenced to probation for assault.

As a conservative Republican, he even, unsuccessfully, ran for the Republican nomination for United States Senate from California in 1986. At one point he became involved with Sun Myung Moon's campus ministry organization CARP and became involved with Mormonism.

In the mid-1980s, Cleaver became addicted to crack cocaine. In 1992 he was convicted of cocaine possession and burglary. In 1994, after nearly dying in a cocaine-related assault, he kicked his addiction and returned to Christianity.

Cleaver died of prostate cancer in Pomona, California in 1998 at the age of 62, and is interred in the Mountain View Cemetery, Altadena, California. He is survived by his daughter, Joju Younghi Cleaver, and son Macio Cleaver.

External links

• CNN Obituary
• PBS Frontline Interview with Eldridge Cleaver
• Reason Magazine Interview with Eldridge Cleaver