Every day brings a new story. And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.
Today is the story of Aug. 31st
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It is the 243rd day of the year, leaving 122 days remaining in 2022.
He told his stories about the life of Black people in the United States in personal, often angry, and sometimes violent terms. His essays were about Black alienation, Black liberation, and the impact on Black masculinity.
Those essays, written while he was in prison and published by the magazine Ramparts, later were collected in the best-selling book, Soul on Ice. The essays had a strong impact on Black revolutionaries at the time and on the Black Power Movement.
He later wrote Soul on Fire, part memoir and part political exploration. Later, his wife of 20 years, Kathleen Cleaver, edited a collection of his writings, published as Target Zero: A Life in Writing.
After being released from prison in 1966, Cleaver, along with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, was instrumental in helping to promote the Black Panthers. He became the minister of information and party spokesman, and his ideas were a large part of the party's platform.
But during the protests that occurred after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Cleaver and fellow Panther Bobby Hutton were involved in a shootout with police in Oakland, Calif., leaving Hutton dead, and Cleaver and two police officers wounded. After being arrested and released on bail, Cleaver fled the country.
He later returned to the United States and received five years of probation. He broke with the Panthers. Late in his life, he proclaimed himself a Republican and born-again Christian, before being baptized in the Mormon faith.
He died in 1998.
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