MINISTER OF INFORMATION, BLACK PANTHER
PARTY, 1966-1971

The author of Soul on Ice (1968), a prison autobiography that has been called second only to the Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) in its influence on young black militants, Cleaver was a leading spokesman for the Black Panther Party, notable for his willingness to recruit white radicals to the black nationalist cause.

Background.

Born in Wabbaseka, Arkansas, a small town near Little Rock, Leroy Eldridge Cleaver was raised in Phoenix and the Watts section of Los Angeles. Beginning in the early 1950s he was convicted on a variety of marijuana-related charges and spent time in reformatories and prisons. In 1957 he was sentenced to two to fourteen years for attempted murder and spent the next nine years in Soledad prison.

Black Muslim.

In 1958 Cleaver joined the Black Muslims and became a leader among the other Muslim prisoners....