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The Education of Eldridge Cleaver
Collection StructureFiring Line broadcast records > Episode guide > The Education of Eldridge Cleaver
Item Title The Education of Eldridge Cleaver
Guest Cleaver, Eldridge (1935-)
Host Buckley, William F., Jr. (1925-2008)
Date CreatedJanuary 14, 1977
Description

Mr. Buckley starts by reminding us of the background: convicted in 1958 of assault with intent to rape and kill, Mr. Cleaver was sentenced to 14 years in jail. Released on parole, he joined the nascent Black Panther Party and became its Minister of Information. He was involved in a gunfight in which one of his brethren was killed and two policemen were wounded; while out on bail, he ran for President on the Peace and Freedom ticket, appeared on Firing Line (#124), and fled the country to avoid being returned to jail. In 1975 he returned home. In his previous appearance on Firing Line (of which we see a short clip here) everyone was a pig, a lackey, or an imperialist. A few years in Cuba, Algeria, and North Korea have taught Mr. Cleaver a lot: "They [rulers of countries like Algeria] use their foreign policy as a weapon against their own people. They tell the students and the other people who disagree with the Boumedienne government that 'You can't change things now; you can't rock the boat now or it will jeopardize the rights of the Vietnamese people'; because during the time that the war was going on the Vietnamese had one of their major operations in the Western world [there]... And again, they will tell the Algerian people that 'You can't rock the boat or you will jeopardize the rights of the Palestinian people'; and so they had an open-arms policy for revolutionaries ... and dissidents from other countries."

Language(s)
Country of Origin
Place RecordedNew York City, New York, United States
DimensionsDuration: 60 minutes
FormatText
Medium television programs
Aspect Ratio
4:3
Color
color
Soundtrack
sound
Hoover IDProgram S0263
Record Number80040.508
NotesVideo available through special order.
RightsCopyright held by Stanford University. This copy is provided for educational and research purposes only. No publication, further reproduction, or reuse of copies, beyond fair use, may be made without the express written permission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives on behalf of Stanford University.

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