Eldridge Cleaver Quotes (1935-1998)

“Americans think of themselves collectively as a huge rescue squad on twenty-four-hour call to any spot on the globe where dispute and conflict may erupt.”

“Americans think of themselves collectively as a huge rescue squad on twenty-four-hour call to any spot on the globe where dispute and conflict may erupt.”

“Americans think of themselves collectively as a huge rescue squad on twenty-four-hour call to any spot on the globe where dispute and conflict may erupt.”

“What has suddenly happened is that the white race has lost its heroes. Worse, its heroes have been revealed as villains and its greatest heroes as the arch-villains. The new generations of whites, appalled by the sanguine and despicable record carved over the face of the globe by their race in the last five hundred years, are rejecting the panoply of white heroes, whose heroism consisted in erecting the inglorious edifice of colonialism and imperialism; heroes whose careers rested on a system of foreign and domestic exploitation, rooted in the myth of white supremacy and the manifest destiny of the white race.”

“What has suddenly happened is that the white race has lost its heroes. Worse, its heroes have been revealed as villains and its greatest heroes as the arch-villains. The new generations of whites, appalled by the sanguine and despicable record carved over the face of the globe by their race in the last five hundred years, are rejecting the panoply of white heroes, whose heroism consisted in erecting the inglorious edifice of colonialism and imperialism; heroes whose careers rested on a system of foreign and domestic exploitation, rooted in the myth of white supremacy and the manifest destiny of the white race.”

“If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.”

“Huey P. Newton is the baddest motherfucker ever to set foot inside of history. Huey has a very special meaning to black people, because for four hundred years black people have been wanting to do exactly what Huey Newton did, that is, to stand up in front of the most deadly tentacle of the white racist power structure, and to defy that deadly tentacle, and to tell that tentacle that he will not accept the aggression and the brutality, and that if he is moved against, he will retaliate in kind.”

“In Soul on Ice, Eldrige Cleaver pointed out how America’s racial and sexual stereotypes were supposed to work. Whether his insight is correct or not, it bears close examination.”

“Eldridge Cleaver became a sixties icon largely through his literary ability. Cleaver first went to prison at the age of eighteen for smoking marijuana. He later went back for rape. Released from prison in 1966, he joined the staff of the counterculture magazine Ramparts—famous for being charged with a crime for its 1968 cover of burning draft cards. The magazine staff encouraged him to publish the essays he had written while in prison, essays that expressed harsh self-criticism along with harsh criticism of the world that created him. Cleaver was virtually unknown until 1968, when his book of essays, Soul on Ice, was published and he was credited by critics, including in The New York Times Book Review, with a brash but articulate voice. His timing was perfect: In 1968, what was wrong with American society was a leading question in America. A June Gallup poll showed that white people by a ratio of three to two did not believe America was “sick,” but black people by a ratio of eight to seven did. Soul on Ice was published at almost the exact same moment as the Kerner Report on racial violence and, as The New York Times review pointed out, confirmed its findings. “Look into a mirror,” wrote Cleaver. “The cause is you, Mr. and Mrs. Yesterday, you, with your forked tongues.””