Kathleen Cleaver

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Kathleen Cleaver
Black Power Movement
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1967; div. 1987)​
Children2

Kathleen Neal Cleaver (born May 13, 1945) is an American law professor and activist, known for her involvement with the

Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party
, a political and revolutionary.

Early life

Juette Kathleen Neal was born in Dallas, Texas, on May 13, 1945. Her parents were both activists and college graduates of the University of Michigan. Her father, Ernest Eugene Neal, was a sociology professor at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, and her mother, Pearl Juette Johnson, earned a master's degree in mathematics. Three years after Cleaver was born, her father accepted a job as the director of the Rural Life Council of

Black Power."[2][3]

Black Panther Party

Kathleen was in charge of organizing a student conference at

Huey Newton
.

The first major attack against the Black Panther Party was in the 1960s by Los Angeles's first

Peace and Freedom party. Cleaver received 2,778 votes[8] for 4.7% of the total vote, finishing third in a four-candidate race.[9]

As a result of their involvement with the Black Panther Party, the Cleavers were often the target of police investigations. The Cleavers' apartment was raided in 1968 before a Panther rally by the San Francisco Tactical Squad on the suspicion of hiding guns and ammunition. Later that year, Eldridge Cleaver was said to have staged an ambush of Oakland police officers during which two police officers were injured. Cleaver was wounded and fellow Black Panther member Bobby Hutton was killed in a shootout following the initial exchange of gunfire.[10] Charged with attempted murder, he jumped bail to flee to Cuba and later went to Algeria.

When Eldridge Cleaver returned to the United States, he stated the shootout was a deliberate ambush against police. The author who broke the news of Cleaver's claim doubted its veracity because it was in the context of an uncharacteristic speech in which Cleaver stated "we need police as heroes," and said that he denounced civilian review boards of police shootings because "it is a rubber stamp for murder." The author speculated that it could have been a payoff for the Alameda County justice system, whose judge just days earlier had granted Eldridge Cleaver probation instead of prison time. Cleaver was sentenced to community service after getting charged with three counts of assault against three Oakland police officers.[10] The PBS documentary A Huey Newton Story reported that "Bobby Hutton was shot more than twelve times after he had already surrendered and stripped down to his underwear to prove he was not armed."[11]

During Cleaver's time with the Black Panther Party, she helped feed people, provided medical care to families, and took families to visit loved ones in prison. She also “helped put together healing retreats for women who had been in the Black Panther Party, women who had been living underground, who had been tortured, who had been exiled.”[12]

Living in exile

Ruby Diamond Auditorium
at Florida State University, November 1971

In 1969, Kathleen reunited with Eldridge in Algeria.

Huey Newton, one of the party's co-founders and leaders, over the direction the group should take; Newton, recently out of jail, was channeling resources into re-establishing the community outreach "survival programmes", whereas Cleaver favoured a more direct, and at times violent, approach. In 1971, this discord led to the separation of the International Branch of the Black Panther Party, as the Cleavers formed a new organisation called the Revolutionary People's Communication Network
. Cleaver returned to promoting and speaking about the organization. To accomplish this, she and the children moved back to New York. The Algerian government became disgruntled with Eldridge and the new organization, and he was forced to leave the country secretly and meet with Kathleen in Paris in 1973. Kathleen left for the United States later that year to arrange Eldridge's return and raise a defence fund. In 1974, the French government granted legal residency to the Cleavers, and the family was reunited. However, after only a year, the Cleavers moved back to the United States, where Eldridge was arrested and tried for the shoot-out in 1968 and was found guilty of assault. He was sentenced to five years' probation and 2,000 hours of community service. Cleaver went to work on the Eldridge Cleaver Defense Fund, and he was freed on bail in 1976. Eldridge's legal situation was not resolved until 1980. Throughout this time, Eldridge shifted his political views to the right.

Later life

Kathleen Cleaver left Eldridge in 1981 and went back to university, receiving a full scholarship from Yale University. She graduated in 1984,

A. Leon Higginbotham, the faculty of Emory University in Atlanta, visiting faculty member at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
in New York City, the Graduate School of Yale University and Sarah Lawrence College.

In 2005, Cleaver was selected an inaugural Fletcher Foundation Fellow. She then worked as a Senior Research Associate at the Yale Law School, and a Senior Lecturer in the African American Studies department at Yale University. She is currently serving as senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law.[14] In addition to her career, she works on numerous campaigns, including freedom for death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal and habeas corpus for Geronimo Pratt. Cleaver has worked for many years on and published a memoir titled Memories of Love and War.[15] Cleaver has had her writing appear in multiple newspapers and magazines including Ramparts, The Black Panther, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe, and Transition, and she has contributed scholarly essays to the books Critical Race Feminism, Critical White Studies, The Promise of Multiculturalism, and The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. She has also helped edit essays and a writing done by Eldridge Cleaver, Target Zero: A Life in the Writing.[16] She and other former members of the Black Panther Party continue to meet and discuss issues.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Mosnier, Joseph (16 September 2011). "Kathleen Cleaver oral history interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier in Atlanta, Georgia, 2011-09-16" (PDF). Library of Congress. Retrieved 1 May 2019.
  2. ^ Neal Cleaver, Kathleen (1998). "Women, Power, and Revolution". historyisaweapon.com. Retrieved 1 May 2019. About two weeks before I joined SNCC, "Black Power" replaced "Freedom Now" as the battle cry.
  3. ^ Mosnier, 2011 - Page 20
  4. ISBN 9780520293281
    .
  5. ^
    doi:10.1080/07393149908429865
    .
  6. ISBN 9781595586278
    .
  7. ISBN 0-7679-0110-X
    .
  8. ^ "Kathleen N. Cleaver". JoinCalifornia. 1945-05-13. Retrieved 2010-08-27.
  9. ^ "11-07-1968 Election". JoinCalifornia. 1968-11-07. Retrieved 2010-08-27.
  10. ^ a b Coleman, Kate (May 19, 1980). "Souled Out: Eldridge Cleaver Admits He Ambushed Those Cops" (PDF). New West. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 23, 2011. Retrieved January 3, 2011.
  11. ^ "A Huey P. Newton Story – People – Bobby Hutton – PBS". www.pbs.org.
  12. ISBN 978-1-61075-380-7
    .
  13. ISBN 978-1851097692
    .
  14. ^ a b "Kathleen N. Cleaver". emory.edu. Retrieved 1 May 2019.
  15. ^ Cleaver, Kathleen (2 December 2022). "Memories of Love and War". Radcliffe Quarterly. 81 (1:23) (published 1995) – via Alexander Street.
  16. ^ "Kathleen Cleaver". Emory Law. Emory School of Law. Retrieved 20 May 2019.

External links

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