Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an African American writer and political activist, fashion designer, convicted rapist and an early leader of the Black Panther Party serving as Minister of Information, and while in exile, Head of the International Section of the Panthers. As editor of the official Panthers' newspaper, The Black Panther, Cleaver's influence on the direction of the party was rivaled only by founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.
In 1966, Cleaver was convicted of a series of crimes including burglary, assault, rape, and attempted murder, and eventually served time in Folsom and San Quentin prisons until being released on parole. In 1968, Cleaver published Soul on Ice, a collection of essays that was met with both praise and condemnation due to its searing commentary on American society and its provocative assertions. That same year, he became a fugitive after wounding two Oakland police officers in an ambush, during which Cleaver was wounded and fellow Black Panther Bobby Hutton was killed. Cleaver and Newton eventually fell out with each other, resulting in a split that weakened the party.
After spending seven years in exile in Cuba, Algeria, and France, Cleaver returned to the U.S. in 1975, where he designed provocative clothes for men, and later became involved in various religious groups (Unification Church and the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP)) before joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as becoming a conservative Republican, appearing at Republican events. As a child he moved with his large family to Phoenix and then to Los Angeles. He was the son of Leroy Cleaver and Thelma Hattie Robinson. He had four siblings: Wilhelima Marie, Helen Grace, James Weldon, and Theophilus Henry.
As a teenager, he was involved in petty crime and served time in youth detention centers. At the age of 18, he was convicted of a felony drug charge for marijuana, and sent to the adult prison at Soledad. In 1958, he was convicted of rape and assault with intent to murder, and was incarcerated in Folsom and San Quentin prisons, where he became radicalized. He received a copy of The Communist Manifesto, He joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) and led a radical faction of San Quentin's Black Muslims. Cleaver grew dissatisfied with the NOI and left it at roughly the same time that Malcolm X had his publicized rift with Elijah Muhammad and formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).
Cleaver was paroled from San Quentin on December 12, 1966, with a discharge date of March 20, 1971. His parole was granted with the help of Edward Michael Keating, founder of Ramparts magazine, who had started publishing Cleaver's prison essays in June 1966 and guaranteed him a job in the magazine's San Francisco office.
Black Panther Party
Upon his release, Cleaver continued writing for Ramparts and was also organizing efforts to revitalize the OAAU. The Black Panther Party (BPP) was then only two months old.
In 1967, he, 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. In 1967, he married Kathleen Neal Cleaver. They divorced in 1987. They had a son, Ahmad Maceo Eldridge, born 1969, Algeria, died 2018, Saudi Arabia, and a daughter, Joju Younghi, born July 31, 1970, North Korea.
In 1968, Cleaver was arrested on violation of parole by association with individual(s) of bad reputation, and control and possession of firearms. He petitioned for habeas corpus to the Solano County Court, and was granted it along with a release of a $50,000 bail. Having been born on August 31, 1935, he would not have been the requisite 35 years of age until more than a year after Inauguration Day 1969. Although the Constitution requires the president to be at least 35 years of age, it does not specify whether the age must be reached at the time of nomination, election, or inauguration. Courts in Hawaii and New York held that Cleaver could be excluded from the ballot because he did not meet the Constitutional criteria.
In the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, there were riots across the nation. On April 6, Cleaver and 14 other Panthers were involved in an ambush with Oakland police officers, during which two of the officers were wounded as Cleaver and the other Panthers opened fire. Cleaver was wounded during the ambush and 17-year-old Black Panthers member Bobby Hutton was killed. They were armed with M16 rifles and shotguns. In 1980, he claimed that he had led the Panther group on a deliberate ambush of the police officers, thus provoking the shootout.
thumb|A button featuring a depiction of Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver with the slogan, "It's Time to Intensify the Struggle"
Charged with attempted murder after the incident, Cleaver jumped bail to flee to Cuba in late 1968. Elaine Klein normalized his status by getting him an invitation to attend the Pan-African Cultural festival, rendering him temporarily safe from prosecution. Cleaver had set up an international office for the Black Panthers in Algeria.
Byron Vaughn Booth, former Panther Deputy Minister of Defense, Elaine Mokhtefi, in the London Review of Books, writes that Cleaver confessed the murder to her shortly after committing it.
On March 6, 1972, Newton formally expelled Cleaver after Cleaver, while already in Algeria, called upon the Black Panthers to expel party chief of staff David Hilliard who was chief of staff of the party while Newton and others were in prison.
In his 1978 book Soul on Fire, Cleaver made several claims regarding his exile in Algeria, including that he was supported by regular stipends from the government of North Vietnam, which the United States was then bombing. Cleaver stated that he was followed by other former criminals turned revolutionaries, many of whom, including Booth and Smith,
Split and new directions
Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton eventually had a disagreement 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, which led to Cleaver's eventual expulsion from the BPP. Also Cleaver's interest in North Korea and global anti-imperialist struggle drew ire from other BPP members who felt that he was neglecting the needs of African-Americans at home in the U.S. Following his expulsion from the Black Panthers in 1971, the group's ties with North Korea were quickly forgotten.
Cleaver advocated the escalation of armed resistance into urban guerrilla warfare, while Newton suggested the best way to respond 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 by lobbying for increased social programs to aid African-American communities and anti-discrimination laws. Cleaver accused Newton of being an Uncle Tom for choosing to cooperate with white interests rather than overthrow them.
In 1972, Cleaver left Algeria, moving to Paris, France, becoming a born again Christian during time in isolation living underground. He turned his hand to fashion design. Three years later, he released codpiece-revival "virility pants" that he called "the Cleavers", enthusing that they would give men "a chance to assert their masculinity".
Cleaver returned to the United States in 1975 to face the unresolved attempted murder charge. In 1976, Cleaver told the New York Times that he and his wife were baptized evangelical members of the Word of Life International Church.
By September 1978, out on bail as the proceedings dragged on, he incorporated Eldridge Cleaver Ltd. He ran a factory and a West Hollywood shop, selling his "Cleavers", which he claimed liberated men from "penis binding". He saw no conflict between this and his newfound Christianity, drawing support for his overtly sexual design from Deuteronomy 22. Cleaver told Newsweek, "Clothing is an extension of the fig leaf -- it put our sex inside our bodies. My pants put sex back where it should be.<nowiki></nowiki> The long-outstanding charge was subsequently resolved on a plea bargain reducing it to assault. He was also Catholic for a time. He later led a short-lived revivalist ministry called Eldridge Cleaver Crusades, "a hybrid synthesis of Islam and Christianity he called 'Christlam'", He periodically attended regular services and lectured by invitation at LDS gatherings.
By the 1980s, Cleaver had become a conservative Republican. He appeared at Republican events and spoke at a California Republican State Central Committee meeting regarding his political transformation. In 1984, he ran for election to the Berkeley City Council but lost. Undaunted, he promoted his candidacy in the Republican Party primary for the 1986 Senate race but was again defeated. In 1987, his 20-year marriage to Kathleen Neal Cleaver came to an end. In 1990, he entered drug rehabilitation for a stated crack cocaine addiction. In 1992 and 1994, he was arrested for possession by Oakland and Berkeley police. Shortly after his final arrest, he moved to Southern California, falling into poor health.
Death
Cleaver died at age 62 on May 1, 1998, at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona, California. The family announced his cause of death as heart attack at his memorial service at University of LaVerne, where he was employed as a lecturer and diversity consultant at the time of his death.