Eldridge Cleaver's Homecoming

...Inevitably, however, his prominence and provocative activities brought him into conflict with the California authorities...

...His situation is not helped by his present political isolation...

...Cleaver joined the Black Panther party, quickly becoming its Minister of Information and most prominent spokesman...

...The publication of his Soul on Ice in early 196S established Carl Gershman is the executive director of Social Democrats, U.S.A...

...When asked by reporters what he planned to do when he got out of jail, Cleaver replied, "That depends on how old I am...

...Whereas once he had referred to America as Babylon, and denounced it as the successor to Nazi Germany, now he stated: "with all of its faults, the American political system is the freest and most democratic in the world.' Whereas once he had insisted that if he surrendered to the California authorities, he stood no chance of receiving a fair trial—and risked being murdered in jail—now he calmly said: "I don't feel like a doomed man being led to slaughter...

...Yet whatever one's views about Cleaver, he is certainly among the more remarkable figures to have emerged from the unrest of the '60s...

...Cleaver, like Wright, apparently has learned that the world is exceedingly complex...

...The seven other Panthers who were arrested in connection with the shootout were convicted and sentenced (they are all out now on parole...

...But there is a limit to what they can accomplish so long as Cleaver's case remains unpopular...

...The culmination of Cleaver's disillusionment came when Richard Nixon visited China...

...And like many other young ghetto blacks, he was less attracted to the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr...

...Toward the end of 1966...

...Not only did his whole intellectual framework collapse, he could not operate politically in the Third World...

...I am returning to have my day in court...

...He visited Cuba, Algeria, China, North Vietnam, North Korea, the USSR, and several East European countries...

...Cleaver hopes to conduct a dialogue with the Left on these matters...

...He has completely revised his attitude on Israel and condemns the recent UN resolution equating Zionism with racism (see box, p. 9...

...On April 6, 1968, two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Cleaver was arrested in a shootout with the Oakland police that left Panther treasurer Bobby Hutton dead and Cleaver, along with another Panther and two police officers, wounded...

...Some civil rights leaders have offered to help, including Bayard Rustin, president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and Dorothy Height, who heads the National Council of Negro Women...

...him as an important black writer as well...

...than to those of Elijah Muhammad, whose Black Muslims offered, in C. Eric Lincoln's words, "the lure of personal rebirth.' While still in jail, Cleaver joined the Muslims and became a powerful Muslim preacher...

...should be second to none militarily...

...When the Appellate Court overruled the Superior Court and ordered him to surrender on November 27, Cleaver fled the country...

...His ability to function politically will depend, though, on the outcome of his upcoming trial...

...Nor did his words reveal any of the hitler rhetoric that had brought him his notoriety in the late '60s...

...last November 18, almost seven years to the day after he had fled the country to avoid prison...

...Even among the people who might be sympathetic to him, there are many who doubt his sincerity...

...There were no supporters waiting to greet him, only FBI agents and reporters...

...In exile, Cleaver was able for the first time to observe directly the revolutionary nations he had idealized in America...

...From the statements he has made in the past year, it is apparent that Cleaver has undergone a profound, if stilt somewhat mysterious, political transformation...

...Moreover, though he still considers himself part of the Left, he has developed hardline views on international questions that are anathema to his former radical allies, and to most liberals, too...

...cease to exist...

...In the process, he has lost virtually all of his old allies, many of whom suspect him of having made some deal to secure his freedom...

...But his belief in "the international struggle" suffered a severe shock when he saw that all these presumably revolutionary states used "internationalism in a very cynical way in order to further their own nationalist aspirations...

...Detente had made him obsolete, and in 1973, no longer a member of any political organization (Huey Newton had expelled him from the Panthers two years earlier), he settled in Paris with his wife, Kathleen, and their two children...

...Cleaver might also be required to serve additional time on the 1958 assault conviction...

...In France, Cleaver began reconstructing a set of workable political ideas out of the wreckage of his revolutionary notions...

...His homecoming was a distinctly subdued event...

...He is convinced "the Russians would really prefer that the U.S...

...in two of these cases the prosecution relentlessly pursued a conviction despite three hung juries...

...following his release on parole...

...His major concern at the moment, however, is whether America will welcome back one of its prodigal but still native sons...

...In The God That Failed, Richard Wright described the change in his state of mind that came with his rejection of Communism: "I knew in my heart that I should never be able to write that way again, should never be able to feel with that simple sharpness about life, should never again express such passionate hopes, should never again make so total a commitment of faith...

...Echoing the speeches of America's UN Ambassador Daniel P. Moyni-han, he fears the Western democracies are too "guilt-ridden" to stand up to the new combination of Communist, Arab and "economically dependent" Black African dictatorships...

...When you see Nixon and all that he stands for shaking hands with Mao and all that he stands for,'' Cleaver said recently, "well, it marks a turning point in history and a personal turning point for me...

...Later, he broke with Muhammad to follow Malcolm X, whom he described as "the universal hero of black prisoners...

...He felt no more at home in Black Africa, where "the whole skin thing didn't stand up too heavy...

...If his hopes are now less passionate and his commitments less total than they once were, his ability to understand society and himself seems to have grown...

...Cleaver considers Washington's detente policy a form of appeasement, and criticizes the U.S...

...Politically we were worlds apart...

...This has led him to conclude that "the U.S...

...As a desult, he today says he would like to see socialist economic reforms carried out in America "through our established institutions...

...Bail was refused on the grounds that he was a parole violator, but a Superior Court judge concluded the denial was politically motivated...

...In the early part of that decade, when civil rights activists were practicing nonviolence in the South, Cleaver was in California's Soledad prison, serving a 1-14-year jail sentence for assault with intent to commit rape...

...He also found them to be internally repressive...

...for defaulting on its "obligation to help in the disintegration of the totalitarian Soviet regime...

...He is clearly aware that he does not have the appeal of an Angela Davis or a Joan Little...

...This decision freed Cleaver to run for President on the Peace and Freedom party ticket, and to travel up and down California taunting Governor Ronald Reagan, who had prevented him from lecturing at Berkeley in a course on racism...

...How else, they ask, can one explain his confidence in the American judicial system, his praise for American democracy, his denunciations of Communist and Third World dictatorships...