[In the following review, Raggio explicates the main points of Cleaver's agenda in Post-Prison Writings and Speeches, separating his rhetoric from his insights on race relations.]

Eldridge Cleaver is not a man who errs, in life or in prose, on the side of caution. At age 20 he began a systematic program of raping white women after coming to the conclusion that Negro males had a hang-up about them. American society, he reasoned, fostered the white woman as an ideal while forbidding the black man to touch her, and she thus became a symbol of the dignity and freedom he did not have. Activist Cleaver's solution was to perfect his "insurrcctionary" technique in the black slums, then cross the tracks to touch the untouchable.

Apprehended, Cleaver spent nine years in California prisons. His first book, Soul on Ice, was written in a prison cell. Dealing with questions such as race relations, literature, the prison system and the "Third World," it features vivid language and broad indictments. Too vivid or too broad? Perhaps. But the book has become a phenomenon that can hardly be ignored.

The hardcover edition, included in the New York Times list of the 10 most important books of 1968, has sold more than 121,000 copies. The paperback has already made publishing history: The publisher had anticipated a first printing of 40,000 (twice as much as for any previous "quality" paperback it had put out), but orders were so heavy that the first printing was raised to 300,000 by the Feb. 1 publication date. Another 300,000 were printed by the end of the month, and the publisher sees "no cessation of interest."

Now there is a new book, Eldridge Cleaver, edited by Robert Scheer and with 75,000 hardcover copies already in print. This is a collection of speeches and articles composed by Cleaver between his prison-release in 1967 and his becoming a fugitive from the California parole authority last November.

It would be an oversimplification to dismiss Cleaver as a black racist. He is indeed convinced that black people have been collectively mistreated in the U.S. for a very long time. However, he emphasizes class rather than race, and he does seek help from white Americans in making the system more benevolent for poor people, black and white, abroad and at home. And he reserves special scorn for the "vicious black bourgeoisie."

Nine years in prison is a long time, and Cleaver decided that hatred of the individual white was a mistake, astray not so much from the "white man's law" as from being a civilized human being. By the time of writing Soul on Ice, he had already embraced and rejected the Black Muslims and their "white devil" theories and was relating to the whites involved in the civil rights movement. Even earlier, in his early 20s, he was impressed by the 1954 Supreme Court Decision, when he finally learned of it, and thought it a significant effort by white men to implement equality of opportunity and justice. The civil rights marches and then the Vietnam protests stimulated Cleaver to write. As he saw it, the country was sick, but it was getting better; Cleaver was sick and he would too.

Cleaver's approval of American social ideals does not extend to the economic system. His basic premise is that any poverty in a wealthy country is a crime. He insists that too many Americans, black and otherwise, are passed over when the fruits of affluence are distributed. They are, in his view, the stuff of revolution; owning nothing and with little hope, they are alienated from the very sidewalks on which they walk.

The Negro is more shabbily treated, Cleaver maintains, than any minority group with the possible exception of the American Indian. This, he believes, is partially because the black man has been a chattel for most of his slay in America, and also because limitations on educational opportunities persisted long after Emancipation. In Cleaver's view, the failure of the economic and social order to benefit his people has generated a deep alienation among many blacks; they neither respect nor wish to maintain most established institutions of private property.

Cleaver believes this creates a fundamental conflict with the police. In his scenario, the police are the armed guardians of the status quo and Negroes are its chief domestic victims. Thus, he says, excessive police force is to be expected and the black community must prepare to defend itself until the society undergoes the requisite structural changes.

This theory led Cleaver to join the Black Panther Party in 1967. Panther activities included following patrol cars through the black slums; when the police stopped to make an arrest, the Panthers would also alight to become witnesses, shotguns at the ready (though in compliance with California gun laws). Cleaver says that while he spoke and wrote a great deal in support of the Panthers he never carried a gun during parole. As a result of one Panther-Oakland police confrontation, Cleaver was shot in the leg and had his parole revoked.

As for the unsettling elements of rhetoric in his talk of revolution, Cleaver recognizes that the American social organism is very durable and that no one is about to storm the White House. But he feels that violent talk may force those in power to listen when modest petitions fall on deaf ears. Further, Cleaver knows that some social and economic institutions already work for him, and that others are becoming more responsive. He was surprised and grateful when last year a California judge granted him a writ of habeas corpus, ruling that Cleaver's parole had been revoked solely because of "his undue eloquence in pursuing political goals."

And despite his hot words about domestic colonialism and revolution, Cleaver basically hopes that social reform will be enough. He is not a separatist, and he believes that the reforms can be made if enough people are aware of the problems and of the pain they cause. His writings, over and above the rhetoric and bravado, prompt the conclusion that Cleaver is an optimist; he assumes people can be influenced by argument, that their conduct is not wholly determined by racial, cultural or economic status.

To this reviewer, Cleaver's books are the clearest statement available as to why riots occur and why the racial situation appears so dangerous. That he is now removed from the public scene thus would seem unfortunate, for there is a need for people who can articulate the hostilities that obviously exist in many black communities. Cleaver's disappearance will not restore tranquillity to the exploding black slum. It may only make it more difficult for the rest of us to understand what really is happening.