''Soul on Ice'' is a memoir and collection of essays by
Eldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party.
In 1968, Cleaver wrote '' Soul on Ice'', a collection of essays that, at the time of i ...
. Originally written in
Folsom State Prison
Folsom State Prison (FSP) is a California State Prison in Folsom, California, U.S., approximately northeast of the state capital of Sacramento. It is one of 34 adult institutions operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabi ...
in 1965, and published three years later in 1968, it is Cleaver's best known writing and remains a seminal work in
African-American literature
African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African ...
. The treatises were first printed in the nationally-circulated monthly
''Ramparts'' and became widely read for their illustration and commentary on
Black America. Throughout his narrative, Cleaver describes not only his transformation from a
marijuana
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...
dealer and
serial rapist
A serial rapist is someone who commits multiple rapes, whether with multiple victims or a single victim repeatedly over a period of time. Some serial rapists target children. The terms ''sexual predator'', ''repeat rape'' and ''multiple offending ...
into a convinced
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...
adherent and
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
revolutionary, but also his analogous relationship to the politics of
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
Background
Eldridge Cleaver was born in
Wabbaseka, Arkansas
Wabbaseka is a town in Dunnington Township, Jefferson County, Arkansas, United States. Its population was 255 at the 2010 U.S. census. It is included in the Pine Bluff, Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Geography
Wabbaseka is located at ...
, in 1935, amidst the severe and unrepentant racism of the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
. In 1946, his family moved to
Watts, California
Watts, California, was a city of the sixth class that existed in Los Angeles County, California, between 1907 and 1926, when it was consolidated with the City of Los Angeles and became one of the neighborhoods in the southern part of that city.
...
, where, although the racial climate was not as acute, the young Cleaver began delving into petty crime. After a series of arrests throughout his adolescence, in 1954, he was sent to
Soledad State Prison
Correctional Training Facility (CTF), commonly referenced as Soledad State Prison, is a state prison located on U.S. Route 101, north of Soledad, California, adjacent to Salinas Valley State Prison.
Facilities
The institution is divided in ...
for possession of marijuana. Though he was released within two years, later in 1957, he was convicted of sexual assault with intent to murder and was subsequently sent to
San Quentin
San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the o ...
and then onto
Folsom Folsom may refer to:
People
* Folsom (surname)
Places in the United States
* Folsom, Perry County, Alabama
* Folsom, Randolph County, Alabama
* Folsom, California
* Folsom, Georgia
* Folsom, Louisiana
* Folsom, Missouri
* Folsom, New Jerse ...
.
While imprisoned at Soledad, Cleaver obtained his high school diploma and read the opuses of
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
,
Richard Wright,
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
,
Machiavelli,
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
,
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...
, and
W. E. B. Du Bois. When he arrived at Folsom, he began to regularly write freely upon the subject of his "social" and physical imprisonment and the events of the era; eight years later his lawyer, Beverly Axelrod, took the compositions to ''Ramparts'' and they were immediately published. After his release in December 1966, Cleaver was reporting for the magazine in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, and in 1968 ''Soul on Ice'' was released.
The essays in ''Soul on Ice'' are divided in four thematic sections:
* "Letters from Prison", describing Cleaver's experiences with and thoughts on crime and prisons
* "Blood of the Beast", discussing race relations and promoting black liberation ideology
* "Prelude to Love - Three Letters", Two love letters written to Cleaver's attorney, Beverly Axelrod and one written to Cleaver by Axelrod.
* "White Woman, Black Man", on gender relations, black masculinity, and sexuality
The central premise surrounding the book as a whole is the trouble of "identification as a black soul which has been 'colonized'... by an oppressive white society that projects its brief, narrow vision of life as eternal truth." Cleaver uses the informal essays to navigate through the history and present state of America, covering topics such as the murders of
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...
and
Emmett Till
Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery ...
; the
race riots
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's positio ...
and
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
;
U.S. Foreign Policy
The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the ''Foreign Policy Agenda'' of the Department of State, are ...
and the
American Flag
The national flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the c ...
;
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...
,
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
and other "black celebrities;"
Richard Wright's ''
Native Son
''Native Son'' (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s.
While not apologizing ...
'';
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
and
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
; day-to-day prison life; and the relationship between black men and white women. In the book, Cleaver admitted to raping black girls as a "practice run" before seeking white women as prey, but claims that in jail he had come to consider those acts as inhuman and, inspired by Malcolm X, had repudiated racism. The text also included
homophobic
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...
criticism of the writings of the black novelist
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...
.
["The black homosexual, when his twist has a racial nexus, is an extreme embodiment of this contradiction. The white man has deprived him of his masculinity, castrated him in the center of his burning skull, and when he submits to this change and takes the white man for his lover as well as Big Daddy, he focuses on “whiteness” all the love in his pent up soul and turns the razor edge of hatred against “blackness”—upon himself, what he is, and all those who look like him, remind him of himself." ''Soul on Ice'' p. 103.]
Censorship
The book was one of eleven involved in ''
Island Trees School District v. Pico
''Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico'', 457 U.S. 853 (1982), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court split on the First Amendment issue of local school boards removing library books from junior ...
'', a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case. The books were removed from libraries or otherwise restricted by the board of education of the
Island Trees Union Free School District
Island Trees Union Free School District is a school district in central Nassau County on Long Island, approximately 31 miles east of New York City. The district includes parts of the following hamlets; Levittown, Bethpage, Plainedge, and Seaf ...
in New York.
See also
*
Cape Editions The Cape Editions are a selection of short books, frequently in translation, issued by UK publisher Jonathan Cape from 1967 to 1971.
The collection has been described as "the remarkable Cape Editions series of seminal modern texts: poetry, prose, ...
References
{{Reflist, 30em
External links
Guide to the Eldridge Cleaver Papersat
The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...
"Cleaver, Eldridge" ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', Sixth Edition. 2001–07
American memoirs
1968 non-fiction books
Censored books
Prison writings