The phenomenon of radicals and leftwing political activists recanting earlier allegiances to shift in a rightwards direction has often been commented upon, with explanations that veer from identifying a convergence between extreme-left and extreme-right positions; to wider social and economic changes; to psychological factors intrinsic to each particular individual. One of the most startling examples of such a change in political orientation – and made not once, but on numerous occasions – is that of Eldridge Cleaver, the former Black Panther party leader. What lay behind the startling transitions in Cleaver’s story is here discussed with reference to a psychohistorical framework that can help explain the broader phenomenon of Left-Right political conversion.
Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, ‘Eldridge Cleaver: the conversion story of the century’, promotional flier for event on 19March1977, cited in Eldridge Cleaver Papers, 1963–1988, University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Carton 9, Folder 38; P. Sanderlin, ‘Soul on rice’, Athens Observer (Vol. 9, no. 61, 18November1982), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 4.
2.
DeutscherI., The Prophet Outcast – Trotsky: 1929–1940 (Oxford, 1987), p. 442.
3.
Cleaver’s papers are held at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. I am very grateful to the Bancroft’s staff for their help and support. For a useful biography of Cleaver, see RoutK., Eldridge Cleaver (Boston, MA, 1991). More recently, see MarvinX., Eldridge Cleaver: my friend the Devil (Berkeley, CA, 2009). While I draw on this book for its observations about Cleaver (which are valuable, given the author’s proximity as a former close associate of his), it has to be approached cautiously as a work of biography, since it contains numerous factual inaccuracies. For example, he describes Cleaver as a ‘convicted rapist’ (p. 21) and, while Cleaver was indeed a serial offender in this regard (see below), he was never convicted of this crime.
4.
Deutscher, op. cit., p. 442.
5.
SealeB., Seize the Time: the story of the Black Panther Party (London, 1970), pp. 92–3; CleaverE., Soul on Fire (London, 1979), p. 87; Cleaver, untitled manuscript (1965), Cleaver Papers, Carton 1, Folder 1, p. 74; L. Neale, ‘One journey home: Eldridge Cleaver’s spiritual path’, EarthLight Magazine (no. 50, spring2004), available at: www.earthlight.org/2004/essay50_neale_pff.htm.
Cleaver, Telephone interview, ibid., pp. 1–3; Cleaver, Letter from Eldridge Cleaver to Beverly Axelrod (25June1965), Cleaver Papers, Carton 1, Folder 1, p. 8; Cleaver, Creative writing notes (24March1966), Cleaver Papers, Carton 1, Folder 3, pp. 1, 2.
8.
PizoliP., ‘If I can be saved … then anybody in the world can be saved’, Suburban and Wayne Times (24November1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 10, Folder 20; CleaverE., ‘Soul on grace: an interview with Eldridge Cleaver’, Eternity (May1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 10, Folder 2, p. 37; Cleaver, Untitled manuscript, op. cit., pp. 6, 77, 78.
9.
CleaverE., ‘The white race and its heroes’ (undated manuscript), Cleaver Papers, Carton 1, Folder 8, pp. 3, 12; Cleaver, ‘Lazarus, come forth’ (undated manuscript), Cleaver Papers, Carton 1, Folder 9, p. 1.
10.
Bethel A. M. E. Church, ‘Eldridge Cleaver to speak in Chico’, press release (28July1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 9, Folder 8. In terms of the Saul/Paul comparison, one pastor suggested that Cleaver might benefit from a period of study of God’s word within a church, just like Paul, who had apparently spent three years studying after his conversion (C. F. Hudson, Letter from Carl F. Hudson to Eldridge Cleaver (12April1978), Cleaver Papers, Carton 9, Folder 20). Evidently, Cleaver did not take to the idea; Neale, op. cit.; M. Garbus, ‘Cleaver asserts his conversion to Christ’, Wheaton Daily Journal (1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 9, Folder 9, p. 1.
11.
Kram op. cit.; H. Abramson, ‘Eldridge Cleaver’s new image’, Sacramento Union (20March1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 29; Moody Monthly, ‘Cleaver speaks on faith, trial’ (May1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 12, Folder 4, p. 10; Neale, op. cit.; T. D. Allman, Untitled manuscript (1976), Cleaver Papers, Carton 12, Folder 28, p. 2; AP News Features, transcription (17July1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 12, Folder 12.
12.
PearsonH., The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the price of Black Power in America (Reading, 1994), p. 170; Kauffman and Scarlett, op. cit.; San Francisco Examiner, ‘Eldridge Cleaver seeks mayor’s seat, born-again Panther Party’ (24January1984), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 42; R. Gonzales, ‘Radicalism behind him, Cleaver tells why he supports Reagan’, San Jose Mercury (12November1980), Cleaver Papers, Carton 12, Folder 22; Allman, ibid.
13.
CleaverE., ‘Introduction’, in RubinJ., Do it! Scenarios of the revolution (London, 1970), p. 9. The outcry caused by Cleaver’s arrival at Berkeley prompted officials to prevent students from receiving any credit for studying in his classes (TurnerW., ‘Ex-Black Panther leader returns to coast campus’, New York Times (20May1982), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 45); KimballR., The Long March: how the cultural revolution of the 1960s changed America (San Francisco, CA, 2000), p. 215.
14.
Turner, ibid.; Abramson, op. cit.; Kauffman and Scarlett, op. cit.; Russell, ‘From Black Panther to Mormon: the case of Eldridge Cleaver’, Mormon Matters (10March2009), available at: http://mormonmatters.org/2009/03/10/from-black-panther-to-mormon-the-case-of-eldridge-cleaver/; CannellaD., ‘Eldridge Cleaver backs Reagan’s economic proposals’, Arizona Republic (4October1981), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 45.
15.
Turner, op. cit.; EllisonK., ‘Eldridge Cleaver squares off against “cesspool” of the Left’, Mercury News (Alameda County morning edition; 3March1984), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 36, p. 7A; Unknown date and source, ‘Cleaver’, Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 36.
16.
AP News Features, op. cit.; Ellison, ibid.; YoungN., ‘Former activist speaks on his conversion’, Gamecock (Vol. 75, no. 41, 15November1982), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 4.
17.
Black Panther party ‘Eldridge Cleaver denounced FBI agent charged with murder’ Black Panther (17April1976), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 27; Cleaver, ‘Soul on grace’, op. cit., p. 36.
18.
Some twelve years later, Cleaver admitted to having ambushed the police on that fateful night, contrary to earlier claims of having been set upon by the officers; ColemanK., ‘Souled out: Eldridge Cleaver admits he ambushed those cops’, New West Magazine (19May1980), p. 20.
19.
Cleaver, Telephone interview, op. cit., pp. 10–13; Cleaver, ‘America’s role in the world revolution’, speech, Northeast Region (12–15October1982), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 2, pp. 6, 7.
20.
CleaverE., ‘Eldridge Cleaver on censorship’, first draft of paper presented to ‘Censorship in the public schools: who shall decide?’, University of Florida (14–15January1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 9, Folder 19, pp. 20, 21; Kauffman and Scarlett, op. cit.; Garbus, op. cit.
21.
Kauffman and Scarlett, op. cit.; I. Deutscher, Heretics and Renegades, and Other Essays (London, 1969), p. 15; C. Hill, The Experience of Defeat: Milton and some contemporaries (London, 1984).
22.
Deutscher, ibid., p. 12.
23.
RadoshR., ‘Hanging up the old red flag’, in CollierP.HorowitzD., eds, Second Thoughts: former radicals look back at the sixties (New York, 1989), pp. 14–16; Collier and Horowitz, ‘Who killed the spirit of ’68? Or, the day the “ramparts” fell’, Encounter (no. 65, October1985), p. 72; T. Ali, Street Fighting Years: an autobiography of the sixties (London, 2005), Chapter 11. For the changed American political context in the 1970s, see SchulmanB. J.ZelizerJ. E., eds, Rightward Bound: making America conservative in the 1970s (Cambridge, 2008).
Cleaver, Soul on Fire, op. cit., p. 77; The FBI’s COINTELPRO had helped open a rift between Newton and Cleaver by fabricating letters and statements designed to inflame their relations (see ChurchillW.WallJ. V., Agents of Repression: the FBI’s secret wars against the Black Panther party and the American Indian movement (Boston, MA, 1988), pp. 40–2). The Panthers felt the full brunt of state power in general, with most of the leadership either executed, jailed, put on trial or in exile (see KatsiaficasG., The Imagination of the New Left: a global analysis of 1968 (Boston, MA, 1987), p. 118). Cleaver himself acknowledged that the Black radical leadership was partly smashed on the rocks of FBI intervention as well as the actions of Black politicians opposed to the Panthers (Cleaver, Telephone interview, op. cit., p. 27).
26.
AliT., The Idea of Communism: what was communism? (London, 2009); PelsD., ‘The dark side of socialism: Hendrik de Man and the fascist temptation’, History of the Human Sciences (Vol. 6, no. 2, 2003), p. 76; KershawI., The Nazi Dictatorship: problems and perspectives of interpretation (London, 2000), Chapter 2.
27.
Cleaver, Soul on Ice, op. cit., p. 19; Seale, op. cit., p. 103; B. Seale, A Lonely Rage: the autobiography of Bobby Seale (New York, 1978), p. 160; HarrisN., The Mandate of Heaven: Marx and Mao in modern China (London, 1978); NewtonH., ‘Panther in a china shop’, Good Times (Vol. 4, no. 31, 29October1971), Cleaver Papers, Carton 4, Folder 44; J. Chang and J. Halliday, Mao: the unknown story (New York, 2005), p. 506.
28.
Seale, Seize the Time, op. cit., pp. 92–3; Cleaver, Soul on Fire, op. cit., p. 87; Rout, op. cit., p. 178; E. Cleaver, ‘Letter from jail’, in AliT., ed., New Revolutionaries: Left opposition (London, 1969), p. 85; Rap BrownH., Die Nigger Die! (New York, 1969), p. 144; Kauffman and Scarlett, op. cit.; Seale, A Lonely Rage, op. cit., p. 153; YoungN., An Infantile Disorder? The crisis and decline of the New Left (London, 1977), p. 243.
29.
HarmanC., The Fire Last Time: 1968 and after (London, 1988), pp. 348, 350–1; Rout, op. cit., p. 161.
30.
HobsbawmE., Interesting Times: a twentieth-century life (London, 2003), p. 217; indeed, Cleaver admitted that he himself might have opined on ‘the god that failed’; Cleaver, Soul on Ice, op. cit., pp. 122, 132, 187; Cleaver and H. L. Gates, Jr, ‘Eldridge Cleaver on ice’, Transition: the anniversary issue: selections from Transition, 1961–1976 (nos 75/76, 1997), pp. 294, 296, 302–03; AppelmanH., ‘Former Black Panther speaks for democracy’, Yale Daily News (Vol. 106, no. 108, 3April1984), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 36.
Jonah Raskin’s response to his death is not too different from this; see Raskin, op. cit.
33.
Pearson, op. cit., pp. 150, 162, 163.
34.
Cleaver, Soul on Ice, op. cit., pp. 14–15; Cleaver, Untitled manuscript (1965), op. cit., pp. 21, 43–57; Cleaver, ‘Notes on a native son’ (undated manuscript), Cleaver Papers, Carton 1, Folder 10, pp. 7, 8; Cleaver, Letter to Beverly Axelrod, op. cit., p. 7.
35.
Pearson, op. cit., p. 226; JezerM., Abbie Hoffman: American rebel (New Jersey, 1992), pp. 218–19; Rout, op. cit., p. 257; BrownP., ‘Kathleen Cleaver wants peace, a balanced life’, Peninsula Times Tribune (15May1981), Cleaver Papers, Carton 14, Folder 40, p. B3.
36.
Cleaver, ‘Notes on a native son’, op. cit.; Cleaver, ‘Dan White, welcome here’, press release (9January), Cleaver Papers, Carton 2, Folder 1; Marvin X, op. cit., p. 121.
37.
See, for example, the case of Alain Badiou, a former Maoist who has written critically about the phenomenon of ex-Maoist radicals supporting Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 French presidential elections (Badiou, The Meaning of Sarkozy (London and New York, 2008)).
38.
KirkpatrickI., Mussolini: a study in power (New York, 1964), p. 70; MegaroG., Mussolini in the Making (London, 1938), p. 191; BullockA.BurkeP., ‘Psychohistory’, in BullockA.TrombleyS., eds, The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (London, 1999), p. 701; VolkanV. D.ItzkowitzN.DodA. W., Richard Nixon: a psychobiography (New York, 1997), p. 4; HitchensC., The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Melbourne, 2001), pp. 133, 134; Marvin X, op. cit., p. 44.
39.
Raskin, op. cit.
40.
This was the inference of one reporter (CleaverE., press conference with Eldridge Cleaver (22November1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 9, Folder 36, p. 1).
41.
Cleaver, ‘Eldridge Cleaver on censorship’, op. cit., pp. 18, 19; Kimball, op. cit., pp. 214, 215, 222.
Cleaver’s private papers include cuttings of horoscopes from the San Francisco Chronicle, the predictions of which for his own star sign of Virgo he has marked and circled, including one forecasting promising new business opportunities and another anticipating an enjoyable new year’s eve on account of unexpected financial rewards and the possibility of a new ‘romance’ (‘Horoscope’, San Francisco Chronicle (6July1982), Cleaver Papers, Carton 15, Folder 1, p. 41; ‘Horoscope’, San Francisco Chronicle (31December1983), Cleaver Papers, Carton 15, Folder 1).
44.
Russell, op. cit.; ToscanoA., Fanaticism: on the uses of an idea (London, 2010).
45.
LearyT., Flashbacks: a personal and cultural history of an era – an autobiography (New York, 1990), p. 375; Earth People’s Park, ‘Earth People’s Park presents Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Eldridge Cleaver, Paul Krassner, Alan Harrington, with Wavy Gravy, MC’, promotional flyer, Berkeley Community Theatre (17April1977), Cleaver Papers, Carton 9, Folder 6.
KoestlerA., ‘Arthur Koestler’, in CrossmanR., ed., The God that Failed (New York, 1949); ScammellM., Koestler: the literary and political odyssey of a twentieth-century skeptic (New York, 2009), et passim.
49.
Cleaver, Telephone interview, op. cit., pp. 18, 19, 23, 24.
50.
Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, op. cit.; Cleaver, Soul on Ice, op. cit., p. 16; Cleaver, ‘Affidavit #2: shoot-out in Oakland’, in ScheerR., ed., Eldridge Cleaver: post-prison writings and speeches (New York, Ramparts, 1969), p. 94; Cleaver, Letter to Beverly Axelrod, op. cit., p. 33.
51.
Cleaver wrote the introduction to Rubin’s Do it! (op. cit.), p. 7. The relationship between the two subsequently soured, however, as Cleaver attacked Rubin and other white radicals for endorsing the psychedelic drug culture (see Rout, op. cit., pp. 148–9).
In fact, as late as 1972, four years after his departure from the US, he was still impressed by Marx, whose ideas, while not without their flaws, provided tremendous insights in terms of understanding the inner workings of capitalist society and class inequality; see E. Cleaver, ‘On lumpen ideology’, Black Scholar (Vol. 4, no. 3, November–December1972), Cleaver Papers, Carton 2, Folder 17, pp. 2–3.
55.
Cleaver, Soul on Fire, op. cit., pp. 40, 41, 63, 191, 163; Kifner, op. cit.; Rout, op. cit., p. 3.
56.
Cleaver’s family would not disclose his cause of death. According to Marvin X, Cleaver had been struck on the head a few years before his death by an unknown assailant. He was then warned by doctors to keep away from the crack pipe, but Cleaver apparently could not. The inference is that this is what killed him in the end (Marvin X, op. cit., pp. 134, 135).
