Preview

Eldridge Cleaver: a Man of Good or Evil?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1828 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Eldridge Cleaver: a Man of Good or Evil?
Eldridge Cleaver: A Man of Good or Evil? It’s arduous for a person to decide whether a man like Eldridge Cleaver was born an angel or a demon. Controversy still arises when these contemplations ruminate their conscience. Cleaver has been known for many things in his existence including being a Black Panther leader, a skilled polemicist, a rapist, an international fugitive, an obsessive drug addict, and surprisingly enough, a born-again Christian (Reed/Koury 1). But here’s the kicker, after all of his years of racketeer, he then found the audacity to be a “non-violence counselor,” (1). As we ponder among this dumbfounded news, know that this is nothing yet to what you will soon be enlightened. However, despite of his utterly poor choices in his life, many look back and they see a heroic figure that once aided to the crying help of the needy. So where was the soul of the “good” Eldridge Cleaver in all of this? Was he held captive in his own mind by the demon possessing his body, hoping that one day this hell-raised soul would be exercised? Let us linger on this thought-provoking question a bit more, shall we?.. Leroy Eldridge Cleaver first opened his eyes on the day of August 31, 1935 in Wabbaseka, Arkansas (Wikipedia 1). Under the parental supervision of a waiter-piano player father and a grammar-school educating mother, his family first moved to Phoenix and then packed their belongings in their migration to Los Angeles (Reed/Koury 2). Cleaver’s youthful years was a clichéd childhood of many black adolescents like himself in his time. At an early age, he had already seemed to be having trouble with the “white-man’s law” (Auther 2). The lost, teen-aged boy struggled with routine pat-downs by the “5-0,” which eventually lead to the practically ritual arrests of his law-breaking. The terms reform-school and prison were words that were quite friendly to his ear, when caught in the midst of thievery and the illegal dealing of marijuana (Reed/Koury 2). However,


Cited: Auther, Jennifer. “ ‘He was a symbol’: Eldridge Cleaver dies at 62.” CNN Interactive. 1998. 7 March 2008. . Koury, Renee & Reed, Dan. “Former Black Panther Transformed from Fiery Radical to Quiet Conservative.” San Jose Mercury News. 1998. 5 March 2008. http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SCA5699-0-5941&artno=0000021685&ty…. “Eldridge Cleaver.” Wikipedia. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. 7 March 2008 .
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    The Goals Of The Civil Rights Movement In The 1960s
    • 2677 Words
    • 11 Pages

    The Goals Of The Civil Rights Movement In The 1960s

    (2009). “Fight the Power!” The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. The Journal of Southern History 75.1: 3-28.…

    • 2677 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Who Is Emmett Till: Guilty Or Murder?
    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page

    Who Is Emmett Till: Guilty Or Murder?

    Emmett Till was a 14 year old African American boy who was brutally beaten and murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Emmett Till grew up in a working class family and never experienced much segregation (1). Till went to a segregated school in Chicago. At age five he had gotten polio so he whistled for his stutter. A few days after Emmett flirted with a cashier, he was kidnapped and savagely killed by her husband and brother. He was visiting family in Money, Mississippi and supposedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant.Carolyn’s husband and brother-in-law, Roy and Milam, found out what Emmett did so, they brutally murdered Emmett. They gouged his eye out, shot him in the head, and threw him in a river. Roy and Milam were not indicted…

    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Why Is Emmett Till Wrong
    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Why Is Emmett Till Wrong

    Emmet Till was a fourteen year- old boy brutally murdered on August 24th 1955. When he repeatedly flirted with a white cashier at a grocery store. Four days later Till was kidnapped by two white men, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, who were brothers, they beat him and shot him dead in the head. The white men were approved for murder, although, a bias, white-all male jury freed them. Till’s open casket funeral aroused the emerging Civil Rights Movement.…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Bad Boys Ann Arnett Ferguson Summary
    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Bad Boys Ann Arnett Ferguson Summary

    In her case study Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, Ann Arnett Ferguson analyzes the factors that enforce the stigmatization of African American boys at Rosa Parks Elementary School in the 1990s. Ferguson’s desire to learn from young black males, rather than about them, allows for an investigation that is both inquisitive and analytical. Her work challenges the institutional and societal notions that African American boys make the personal decision to be either naughty or compliant, suggesting that such systems are uninformed in terms of their understanding of young black males’ behaviors (Ferguson 17). Using Ferguson’s 3-year case study, I explore the ways in which institutional and societal impositions of student labeling and individualized instruction contribute to African American boys’ placement into the school-to-prison pipeline.…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    History of Huey Newton
    • 1397 Words
    • 6 Pages

    History of Huey Newton

    In the late 1960's and early '70's posters of the Black Panther Party's co-founder, Huey P. Newton were taped and plastered on walls of college dorm rooms nation-wide. Wearing a black beret and a leather jacket, sitting on a wicker chair, a spear in one hand and a rifle in the other, the poster portrayed Huey Newton as a symbol of his generation's anger and courage. He was a symbol of anger and courage in the face of racism and the class in which blacks were placed. His intellect and leadership abilities were the key components that served in the establishment the Black Panthers. Newton played an instrumental role in refocusing civil rights activists to the problems of urban Black communities. He triggered the rage and frustration of urban Blacks in order to address social injustice. However, the FBI's and White America's fear of the Panthers aggressive actions would not only drive the Panthers apart, but be responsible for the false information regarding its programs and accomplishments. In spite of the advances Huey Newton contributed towards equality in the early sixties, historians have paid so much attention to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King that he is often overlooked. The Panthers and Huey Newton's leadership of the Party are as important to the Black freedom struggle as the more known leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Any typical American history textbook not only neglects to mention Huey Newton but too disregards the existence of the Black Panthers altogether.…

    • 1397 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Achievements Of Jv Lewis
    • 1665 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Achievements Of Jv Lewis

    Born on Christmas Day in the 1800’s as a slave, Joseph Vance Lewis would receive his greatest gift just ten years later: his freedom. Surpassing what he was told was unattainable for him because of the color of his skin; JV Lewis became an educator and lawyer. He was later admitted to the Supreme Court where he was soon recognized as the first African-American lawyer to win a case before a Harris County jury in favor of a black client accused of murder. This case and many other accomplishments made by JV Lewis are highlighted in his career to reflect a better insight of his legacy and show how his achievements helped shape the history of Fourth Ward, where Lewis devoted himself to make a difference. He was a community activist in Houston where…

    • 1665 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Radio Free Dixie
    • 1505 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Radio Free Dixie

    The beginning of black militancy in the United States is said to have begun with the chants “Black Power” demanded by Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks during the 1966 March against Fear. While Carmichael and Ricks may have coined the phrase “black power”, the roots of the movement had been planted long before by Mr. Robert F. Williams. In Timothy Tyson’s book: Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power, Tyson details the life of a remarkable man who had the audacity not only to challenge racial injustice in America but also to contest the rarely disputed strategies of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Establishment.…

    • 1505 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Freedom - Short Story from Tkam After Tom Robinson's Trial
    • 1731 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Freedom - Short Story from Tkam After Tom Robinson's Trial

    As I sat outside watching the other inmates, a gentle breeze caressed my face, providing relief from the sun’s hot rays. I was used to the heat, but maybe it was the circumstances that I was in that made it unbearable. I could see that my fellow inmates felt the same as they lazed about, their skin glistening with sweat, their shirts clinging to their backs. ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ rang angrily in my mind when I saw the number of Negroes compared to white people incarcerated. The amount of court cases, as well as families, jobs and lives, lost due to our colour was innumerable. Half of us didn’t even commit a crime worth being sent to jail for, but here we are! I wiped my forehead with an already sticky hand and surveyed my surroundings in an effort to shake off the contemptuous thought. The dirt oval consisted of some simple worn out exercising equipment, their hinges squeaking in protest with very movement; a few withering trees dying in the midday heat, two lookouts sitting on the inside of the perimeter where the prison guards patrolled the prisoners and a barbed wire fence which enclosed the space in an ominous hug. I thought pensively about my situation as I kicked the dusty ground vehemently, scuffing my already torn prison boots in the process. The rising hopelessness that I had kept bottled up throughout the court case, believing that with Mr Finch on my side I would definitely be acquitted, quickly vanished, much like the specks of dirt that I had kicked up had disappeared, carried away with the breeze of reality.…

    • 1731 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Racial Discrimination In Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail
    • 1393 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Racial Discrimination In Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

    In the past year there have been multiple cases of “racial discrimination” against the police, these cases have been associated with police brutality. Segregation and racial prejudice was a large part of the history in the United States but not in a positive way. Many Americans are not proud of the way the African Americans were treated by their fellow citizens. Prejudice and racial discrimination are prevalent today in both the same and different ways as when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought against it. In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” he uses periodic sentences, syntax, diction, and allusions to write about his beliefs about the immense struggles African Americans experienced to gain their rights, how he…

    • 1393 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Birmingham Church Bombing
    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Birmingham Church Bombing

    Before September 15th, 1963 life in the South was harsh if you were colored, more so in Birmingham, Alabama than others. Many people of color were shot during this time and not all were for a just cause. Back then, “The Birmingham Police shot a lot of people, the city was like a shooting gallery” (Norris 71). As if being shot by the police wasn’t enough, colored people also had to worry about the Ku Klux Klan and their malicious ways. But being shot at wasn’t their only problem. Everywhere people went there was segregation. Bathrooms, drinking fountains, schools, theatres, and many other public areas were all segregated. Was it really so bad that a colored person went to the same school as a white person? Segregation was supported by the legal system and the police. For quite some time colored people couldn’t even do anything about it because they had no voice, no right to vote. Finally on January 12th, 1946 members of the Alabama Democratic Executive Committee announced “that ‘qualified negroes’ would be allowed to vote” (Norris 116). Though their voting right was restricted it was a start, and the colored people of Alabama were not about to let it go. But as time went on people all over the country…

    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The New Jim Crow: Is Colorblindness This Generation
    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The New Jim Crow: Is Colorblindness This Generation

    Alexander, who for many years worked as a civil rights lawyer, uses her vast experience and knowledge concerning the criminal justice system to craft a meticulously researched argument that “colorblindness” is this generation’s most important civil rights issue. As the title indicates, she makes the bold claim that mass incarceration is the 21st century version of Jim Crow. This era in our racial history was one in which brutally devastating laws discriminated and segregated black populations. During Jim Crow, the idea of justice did not exist for black people within law enforcement or court systems. Though her argument is daring, Alexander successfully proves it by analyzing the criminal justice system. She discusses multiple ideas to formulate a case for individuals who are interested in social justice that refocus efforts to tackle the issue of over-populated prisons. In the books introduction, Alexander asserts that she is writing for an audience that cares deeply about racial justice, but also, she wants to empower individuals who have a impression that our nation’s criminal justice system is flawed, but do not have the data or evidence to back up their assumptions.…

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Michelle Alexander
    • 2225 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Michelle Alexander

    Michelle Alexander depicts the grim reality for many young African American men in today’s society in her book the New Jim Crow. The harsh reality for many of them is that they will never be able to fully participate in mainstream society and receive the benefits and basic rights that are taken for granted by the rest of the nation. Her findings show that existence of the Jim Crow laws have yet to fully disappear from society like many believe they have, when it fact, the restrictions of the Jim Crow era have merely been reinvented in the form of the United States’ federal justice system. Today, the United States prison populations are overwhelmingly comprised of people of color. Since the founding of the United States, African Americans have been “denied citizenship that was deemed essential to the foundation” (Alexander 2010: 1). The name given to this denial was Jim Crow and today even with Barack Obama, a black man, as the President of the this great nation, African Americans are still not treated as equals to whites by continually recreating Jim Crow through the federal justice system. As Michelle Alexander writes, “As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow” (2010: 2).…

    • 2225 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration
    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration

    I listened to the audiobook version of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and as I listened I walked through the streets of Boston. One night as I listened to Michelle Alexander talk about how African American men are far more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, I came across two Emerson Police Officers forcing a black man to the ground. He knelt down with his hands in the air as they patted his body down. Maybe he had done something do deserve this treatment, or maybe he had just looked like a criminal because of the color of his skin.…

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Is Racism Shown In To Kill A Mockingbird
    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Is Racism Shown In To Kill A Mockingbird

    prison (Lee 235). Some African Americans think that the justice system is still not fair…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    To Kill A Mockingbird Equality Analysis
    • 848 Words
    • 4 Pages

    To Kill A Mockingbird Equality Analysis

    In 1955, fourteen year old Emmett Till was tortured, beaten, and killed in Money, Mississippi. His case was a tragic injustice, without a proper investigation nor an adequate trial. In Free at Last, Mamie Mobley states,”The order came from the sheriff's office to bury that body just as soon as you can”(Hampton 41). Also, James Hicks, a reporter states, “In spite of the eyewitness testimony, the all-white jury returned a verdict of not guilty, having deliberated for one hour” (Hampton 44). The absence of justice and a proper investigation infuriated black communities throughout America. It was not until years of protest and other non-violent demonstrations that the judicial structure of America would become greater diverse and impartial. The civil rights movement consisted of many men and women making sacrifices and risking their lives for justice and equality for all. The civil rights movement, which was partially fueled by the Emmett Till case, generated possibly the greatest change to society in history, demonstrating that when people put themselves at jeopardy for the benefit of justice and equality, it is almost inevitable that society will…

    • 848 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics