Eldridge Cleaver

"You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem."
Eldridge Cleaver

Leroy Eldridge Cleaver member of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Minister of Information becoming the founder of the Newspaper for the Panthers. Born on August 31, 1935 in Wabbaseka, Arkansas to parents Leroy Cleaver and Thelma Cleaver. After moving throughout the whole country we finally settled into the Watts section of Los Angeles. Soon after my parents divorced and I dropped out of high school. This is when my criminal record began stealing bikes and then imprisoned for possession of marijuana and was moved from prison to prison until released. in 1954 my fate was met when i was arrested and imprisoned yet again for dealing of marijuana and sentenced to two-and-a-half years of prison. it was now when i began to write my famous book "Soul on Ice" that as later published in 1968and became the best seller and named Book of the Year. In this book I spoke about my first years in prison, my relationship with Malcolm X, the significance of the civil rights movement, and accepted my crime of raping women in revenge for the many time that African American women were raped during times of slavery. After my two years in prison I was released but yet again in 1958 arrested for an armed assault where I intended to rape a nurse in the parking lot. This time I was not as lucky I was sentenced to eight long years in prison. But these eight years were not thrown to the trash this is when I joined the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims). As a result, becoming an admirer and follower of Malcolm X. in 1963 when Malcolm broke away from the Nation of Islam; I too followed his steps. The year I was released for jail under parole in 1967 was the year that Malcolm X was assassinated, it was the year that I began to write for "Ramparts", it is the Year that while living in the San Francisco Bay Area I met and married Kathleen Neal. This is also that year that I met Huey P Newton and joined the Black Panther Party. This is where I defended all out Constitutional Rights, our Natural Rights. Where it was not wrong to bare an arm or carry around a law book so that these Pigs would see that we are being realistic as too what we wanted. I have always had my ways with words; I always seemed to speak my points about events that were all around me such as the Watts Riots and the Vietnam war were both examples of the U.S. Imperialism.  By this time i had many people following me because of my book and essays that I wrote from time to time but my moment of fame came to an end on April 6, 1968 when only two days earlier Martin Luther King had been assassinated. This night I decided and proved that giving speeches and writing essays was not going to get us anywhere it was time to take action in another way. we had to show these Pigs what we were capable of, I was involved in a shoot-out with the police that resulted in the death of one of the members of the Panthers. From that day forward i had to run around the world to save myself from stepping prison once again. But everywhere I went I made sure to have established a Panther Community hunger for Justice and Equal Rights. But from this day forward my life would never be the same it would be a downfall from here on out. My wife and I divorced and when I did return to the states I was imprisoned. Then later i tried forming my own religion then I moved on to being a Republican leaving all my Panther Beliefs to the side until my death on May 1, 1998 in Pomona, California.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/us/eldridge-cleaver-black-panther-who-became-gop-conservative-is-dead-at-62.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm