[News] Kathleen Cleaver - Black Panther History Month

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Black Panther Party History Month
"When the African people say, in their plain language, that 'no 
matter how hot the water from the well, it will not cook your rice, ' 
they express with staggering simplicity a basic principle not only of 
physics but also of political science."

-Amilcar Cabral

Kathleen Cleaver - High Priestess of the People's Struggle

http://www.blackcommentator.com/346/346_kir_cleaver_high_priestess.html
by Larry Pinkney

The Black Panther Party [BPP], from its very beginning in the 
struggle against racial and economic oppression, believed in the 
"basic principle not only of physics but also of political science." 
The BPP may now be physically gone, but it is by no means forgotten; 
for its legacy lives on to this day even as the struggle for economic 
and social justice continues unabated.

To be sure, there would have been no viable Black Panther Party 
without the leadership, brilliance, and tenacity of the women who 
were an integral part of the Black Panther Party. Immediately the 
names of Assata Shakur, Tarika Lewis, Afeni Shakur, and Ericka 
Huggins, to name but a very few, come readily to mind. These "sister" 
/ women Black Panthers were, in their own extraordinarily important 
ways, the backbone and female political giants of the Black Panther 
Party. If indeed any one Black Panther Party sister embodied the 
genius, strength, leadership, tenaciousness, and revolutionary beauty 
of the women of the Black Panther Party collectively, she must 
assuredly be Kathleen Cleaver.

The Black Panther Party was founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale 
in October of 1966, in Oakland, California. Thus, the month of 
October is Black Panther Party History Month, but I reiterate that 
without the invaluable rank and file, and national leadership of 
women, there would have been no viable Black Panther Party.

Kathleen Cleaver was not only the revolutionary balance to her then 
spouse, the dynamic, fiery, and prolific Black Panther Party Minister 
of Information Eldridge Cleaver, she was also in fact the visual 
revolutionary inspiration and actuator for and to the entire Black 
Panther Party - women and men alike.

Sister Kathleen, as a member of the national governing body of the 
Black Panther Party known as the Central Committee, and as 
Communications Secretary of the Black Panther Party nationally, 
provided on a national level what rank and file women Black Panther 
Party [BPP] members in chapters across the nation were doing on a 
regular and daily basis - ; she provided the implacable vision, and 
simultaneously a glimpse, of what the egalitarian unity and political 
struggle by Black women and men together might actually bring about and be.

Whereas it was the "brothers" who may initially have brought together 
some pieces to form the Black Panther Party [BPP], it was beyond all 
question, the BPP "sisters" who honed, refined, and actually made 
those pieces coherently work together.

In this the 21st century, it has been correctly written that Kathleen 
Cleaver is "a major voice in the Black Liberation movements of the 
1960s and 70s, [and] continues [presently] to speak out against 
racism, sexism, and economic inequality." However, perhaps just as 
importantly, Kathleen Cleaver has always possessed and still 
possesses today that critically crucial and delicate balance of 
knowing when to immediately cut to the political chase, and likewise 
when to bide her time, and with stunning and straight-forward 
intellectual alacrity proceed to educate, expose, and if necessary, 
intelligently obliterate any who dare challenge the legitimacy of the 
struggle in which she and her former comrades in the Black Panther 
Party gave [and many continue to give] so very much mentally, 
emotionally, and physically. This is the essence of Kathleen Cleaver: 
audacity, intellect, integrity, and no nonsense. This also continues 
to be the essence of the legacy of the Black Panther Party as a whole.

The Ten-Point Program of the Black Panther Party succinctly and 
clearly laid out the objectives and beliefs of the Party. Moreover, 
despite the ultimate physical decimation of the Black Panther Party 
by the end of the 20th century, the BPP Ten-Point Program remains as 
one of the best examples ever of a precise and forthright political 
platform that persons can easily understand and relate to right up to 
the present.

In addition to the Ten-Point Program, free breakfast, free medical, 
free busing, free ambulance, free shoes, and free school programs 
were but a few of the programs instituted by the Black Panther Party 
in service to Black communities throughout the United States. The 
activism of the Black Panther Party translated into tangibly serving 
the people "body and soul."

Thus, it should come as no surprise that Kathleen Cleaver is today an 
author, a law professor, and a resolute political activist. Among 
other books to which Kathleen Cleaver has made major contributions; 
she has co-edited the book titled, 
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415927846?ie=UTF8&tag=blackcommenta-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0415927846>Liberation, 
Imagination, and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers 
and Their Legacy. It needs to be read by any and all serious students 
of the Black Panther Party and/or of people's political struggle in general.

Today the genius of sister Kathleen Cleaver, as well as of other 
former Black Panther Party members including (Black Panther Party 
Legacy & Alumni curator and historian) Billy X Jennings, exiled 
sister Assata Shakur, Elbert "Big Man" Howard, artist extraordinaire 
Emory Douglas, and teacher / educator Ericka Huggins is with us 
still. Moreover, the determination and vision of former long time 
political prisoners Robert Hillary King (aka Robert King Wilkerson) 
and Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt are also with us still.

The revolutionary spirit of the many martyrs of the Black Panther 
Party, including Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter, John Huggins, Fred 
Hampton, Mark Clark, Bobby Hutton, Welton Armstead and so very many 
other women and men of the BPP continues to live on. The Black 
Panther Party's casualties of the vicious U.S. federal, state and 
local war against it, including (but not limited to) Huey P. Newton 
and Eldridge Cleaver, are reminders of the enormous emotional and 
psychological price and carnage that have been, and continue to be, 
put upon any who dare stand up against the avaricious and vampiric 
oppressors of humankind; and should be understood in this context. 
The physical, emotional, amoral viciousness and fall out of the war 
against the Black Panther Party can, to some extent, be summarized in 
the despicable and illegal / unconstitutional U.S. Government program 
(known as COINTELPRO) to "frame, discredit, disrupt, imprison and 
murder" BPP activists. Real change is never brought about without 
severe and real human prices to be paid. There is simply no such 
thing as a genuine painless revolution.

Kathleen Cleaver has also been, and remains, active in legally 
supporting many political prisoners from the Black Panther Party, 
many of whom remain imprisoned today, after decades of wrongful 
incarceration. She has not forgotten the lessons of exile which she 
herself personally experienced. She has not forgotten the struggle.

There is a relatively recent television program on the Black Panther 
Party, which includes sister Kathleen Cleaver and others. It is 
extremely informative, expertly done, and well worth watching. The 
name of the program is: Lords of the Revolution: The Black Panthers. 
It was televised nationally by the VH1 channel and is only 
approximately one hour in length and will hold your attention to its 
conclusion.

As sister Kathleen and other former BPP members made crystal clear, 
each in their own fashion, on the above mentioned VH1 television 
program; over forty years ago the Black Panther Party understood that 
the only way to bring about real systemic "change" was through and by 
the people - we ourselves.

Sister Kathleen Cleaver so completely encapsulated this when she so 
poignantly summarized the program, Lords of the Revolution: The Black 
Panthers, by simply stating, "Wish we could have done better. We 
should have been smarter. We should have been stronger. We should 
have been more organized. We were up against a very, very powerful 
opposition. We didn't know how powerful our government was. We were 
ready to change our world. We still want to change our world." Indeed.

Thank you sister Kathleen. Thank you so very, very much.

All Power To The People.

Onward sisters and brothers! Onward!


BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a 
veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior 
of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the 
only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political 
rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on 
Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political 
organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., 
Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS 
NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For more 
about Larry Pinkney see the book, 
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887392865?ie=UTF8&tag=blackcommenta-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0887392865>Saying 
No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by 
William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click 
<http://www.struggle-and-win.net/13201/43480.html>here to read 
excerpts from the book). Click 
<http://www.blackcommentator.com/contact_forms/larry_pinkney/gbcf_form.php>here 
to contact Mr. Pinkney.





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