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Eldridge Cleaver
Eldridge Cleaver
Reading Comprehension for August 31
"You don't have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman."
Eldridge Cleaver was born on August 31, 1935, in Wabbaseka, Arkansas. His family moved to Phoenix and then to Los Angeles. As a teenager Cleaver began running into trouble with the law. He was arrested many times for theft and selling marijuana and spent time in a reform school.
Once again convicted of possession of marijuana, this time Cleaver was sent to Soledad Prison for 30 months. While he was there he read books by Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Vladimir Lenin. These books greatly influenced his later views on how to right injustices in the United States.
In 1957, he was convicted of assault with intent to murder and sent to Folsom prison in California. While he was in prison serving a term of two to 14 years, he read about civil rights and, especially, the writings of Malcolm X. He became convinced that an armed revolt and the establishment of a black socialist government were the only way to gain justice. He wrote essays about his views on racial issues and revolutionary violence. Later, in 1968, the essays were collected and published in a book titled Soul on Ice.
After he was released from prison in 1966, Cleaver joined the newly formed Black Panthers, a militant black nationalist group. Like many other young black Americans, he rejected the non-violent approach of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and advocated a more direct method. In the Black Panthers he found others who shared his goals and his beliefs about how to accomplish those goals. Soon after joining the Black Panthers, he was named its minister of information, or spokesperson.
