ELDRIDGE CLEAVER, ICON

One of the most interesting members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in my personal opinion was one of its most prominent members, the minister of information (that is chief spokesman and propagandist for the Party) Eldridge Cleaver. TV Reed in The Art of Protest: Culture & Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle cites Cleaver as being somewhat of a thorn in the side of the more conservative Black Panther Party members that were his peers at the very top of the Panther’s organization. Apparently, “personal pathologies, leading in Cleaver’s case to revolutionary fantasies deeply damaged the organization” because of the kind of “star system that emerged in Panther theatrics, with figures like Cleaver... acting out a drama of little or no interest to the rest of the party [or] black America” (Reed 65) in general. According to an article by John Kifner (found at nytimes.com/1998/05/02/eldridge-cleaver-black-panther-who-became-gop-conservative-is-dead-at-62.html), Cleaver began his relationship with civil rights activism in December 1966 “with a job reporting for Ramparts in San Francisco, [through which] Mr. Cleaver helped organize Black House, a cultural center, where he met Huey P. Newton ad Bobby Seale, the co-founders of the Black Panther Party” (Kifner 1). Prior to that time Cleaver had been spending time in San Quentin and then Folsom state prisons on counts or rape and aggravated assault in attempted murder. During that time of reform he spent his free-time refining Soul on Ice, a political send up of what it meant to be black in white America, which was actually published in Ramparts prior to his release.

As Kifner relates in his article, with rising tension between the Panthers and police “Mr. Cleaver was caught up in a shootout in April 1968 in which a 17-year-old- Panther, Bobby Hutton, was killed and Mr. Cleaver and two policemen were wounded.” Facing a second term in prison Cleaver jumped ship “first to Cuba and then to a home in Algeria, then a leftist haven.” During this time it seems that Cleaver was attempting to fashion himself into the iconic symbol of the Panther movement that he had in his own mind: “At first Mr. Cleaver toured Communist countries triumphantly, hailing Kim Il Sung of North Korea, among others. But disillusion set in, and there was increasing friction between the Algerian Government and Mr. Cleaver’s entourage. There was an internal struggle between Mr. Cleaver and Mr. Newton, too, and Mr. Cleaver broke with the Panthers in 1971.” (Kifner 2). In this instance it would seem that the illusion of the revolutionary figure that Cleaver was endeavoring to characterize took hold of the individual behind it (or vice versa) and eventually served to break his relationship with others due to what he saw in his own mind as commitment to the true goals of the movement itself.

According to an excerpt from Reginald Major from Soul on Ice Never Melted (found at Spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcleaver.html) “In 1975, Cleaver, then in exile in Algeria, split with Newton. The widely accepted explanation of the break – irreconcilable differences regarding revolutionary violence – is simplistic, irrelevant. They fell out because Cleaver believed the Party leaders in Oakland were living decadent lives, betraying the Panthers.” This almost Messiah-like complex illustrates the kind of cult of personality that Cleaver engendered not only for the masses but also himself, within his own mind, during his time with the Black Panther Party. More of a radical zealot than social reformer in the eyes of Newton and his peers, the fame of cultural stardom blinded Cleaver to the true intentions behind the party’s goals and actions, a fanatic doing more “work” abroad than at home.