Target Zero A Life in Writing

by Cleaver, Eldridge; Cleaver, Kathleen; Gates, Henry Louis; Brown, Cecil

• ISBN13: 9781403962379
• ISBN10: 1403962375
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-02-07
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

Former Black Panther information minister Eldridge Cleaver was a complex man who inspired profound adulation, love, rage, and, among many, fear. Target Zero brings Cleaver's controversial story into focus through his own words. This books charts Cleaver's life through his writings: his quiet childhood, his youth spent in prison, his startling emergence as a Black Panther leader who became a "fugitive from justice" by the end of 1968, his seven-year exile, and his religious and political conversion following his return to the U.S. Target Zero , which brings together previously unpublished essays, short stories, letters, interviews, and poems, is the most significant collection of Eldridge Cleaver's writing since his bestselling book Soul on Ice (1968).

Author Biography

Eldridge Cleaver is the celebrated author of Soul on Ice and was the information minister of the Black Panther Party. Kathleen Cleaver is a senior lecturer at Yale University and at Emory Law School. She joined Eldridge Cleaver in the Black Panther Party in 1967, when they married. She is an attorney and author, and is currently at work on her memoir, Memories of Love and War.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Henry Louis Gates
Editor's Introduction	xi
Kathleen Cleaver
PART ONE: EARLY YEARS
"Childhood Lessons," Excerpt from Soul on Fire	3	(6)
The Autobiography of Eldridge Cleaver, Chapters One and Two,	9	(6)
The Black Moochie, Parts I and II	15	(24)
"On Becoming," Excerpt from Soul on Ice	39	(12)
'A Day in Folsom Prison," Excerpt from Soul on Ice	51	(8)
Promises, Chapter Two	59	(8)
PART TWO: REVOLUTION
Uptight in Babylon	67	(24)
"My Father and Stokely Carmichael"	91	(10)
"The Courage to Kill: Meeting the Panthers"	101	(12)
"Bunchy"	113	(22)
"Affidavit No. 1: I Am 33 Years Old"	135	(8)
Playboy Interview	143	(28)
"On the Ideology of the Black Panther Party, Part I"	171	(12)
"Farewell Address"	183	(12)
PART THREE: EXILE
The Autobiography of Eldridge Cleaver, Chapter Four	195	(4)
"Message to Sister Ericka Huggins of the Black Panther Party"	199	(4)
"Three Notes from Exile"	203	(16)
The Autobiography of Eldridge Cleaver, Chapter Five	219	(2)
"Towards a People's Army"	221	(4)
"Gangster Cigarettes"	225	(6)
"Culture and Revolution: Their Synthesis in Africa"	231	(10)
"Eldridge Cleaver on Ice"	241	(22)
"Exile and Death"	263	(2)
The Autobiography of Eldridge Cleaver, Chapter Seven	265	(6)
"Why I Left America, and Why I Am Returning"	271	(4)
PART FOUR: TRANSITION
The Autobiography of Eldridge Cleaver, Chapter Nine	275	(4)
"The One Excluded from the Conference"	279	(2)
Letter to Bobby Seale	281	(4)
"Toxic Waste and Acid Rain"	285	(4)
"The Bushwhacking of America"	289	(4)
Letter to Timothy Leary	293	(4)
"Reflections on the Million Man March"	297	(4)
"A Love Letter Writing Butterfly"	301	(2)
Black History Month Address to Grant African American Episcopal Church, Los Angeles	303	(14)
Afterword: Eldridge Cleaver, My Running Buddy	317	(10)
Cecil Brown
Notes	327	(2)
Index	329