all the cool kids knew about eldridge. and the answer is that since then there have been no lessons learned;

 

 In the late 1960s, just about every young American knew about or had read Soul on Ice. It was touted as the authentic voice of righteous black fury, written by a man who had all the credentials a hippie could ask for. Eldridge Cleaver was a high-school-dropout convict who educated himself in prison, poured out his tortured soul behind bars, and burst onto the scene with a best-seller that quickly sold millions of copies. Many years ago, I picked up an old, damaged copy but never read it. Until now.

 

I wanted to see what was “radical” back when we still talked about “Negroes.” White critics raved about Soul on Ice, just as they rave about today’s black stars, such as Ta-Nehisi Coates or Ibram Kendi. Have blacks learned anything? Have whites?

First, though, Soul on Ice is not the work of Eldridge Cleaver alone. His lawyer, Beverly Axelrod (1924–2002), is said to have heavily edited it, so you can never be sure whether you are reading Cleaver or Axelrod. There are, however, ideas that I can imagine coming only from the mind of a black man.

Cleaver was born in 1935 and his family moved to Watts, California, in 1946. He had barely started junior high when he was arrested for stealing a bicycle. There were also arrests for vandalism and selling marijuana — lots of marijuana — and he was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in Soledad State prison. That was in 1954; Cleaver was just 19. He got out in 1957 but was back in prison the same year, and he stayed until he was paroled in 1966 at age 31. He wrote most of Soul on Ice during nine years in Folsom State Prison.................more.........