4 | Red Flags | The Women of the Black Panther Party
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Black History for Real early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Warning, this episode contains mentions of sexual violence. Take care when listening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, listen, I have a bunch of stuff to do today and I really, I cannot do this with you right now. Francesca, Francesca, you know recording, right? Tell your boo thing, you gotta, they gotta wait. All right, yeah, sure. Okay, yeah, I'll call you afterwards. Okay, bye. Yeah, let them know.

Yeah, sorry. I'm just having drama as usual. Perfect reminder that when you see a red flag, just heed it, okay? Red flags? Like what you mean? Like you be on my shirt? Well, without sharing too many details, I would say if you're dating somebody and they're always talking about how their exes are all crazy...

That's a bad sign. That's a huge red flag. Oh, maybe, maybe. Whoa, I don't think you said that. Every single X.

Every single one. What is the common denominator? I got some homeboys that say all they past exes is a little cray cray. No, no, no, no. That means there's one common denominator and it's you. You are the problem. Yeah. Sadly, red flags sometimes look a little pink. You know, it tricks some people. You know, funny enough, though.

There are only red flags all over today's episode. That's because we're talking about Kathleen Cleaver and her complex relationship with Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver. For some in the revolutionary set, they were relationship goals, at least from afar. The Black Panther Party brought them together and the organization was a central part of their relationship. But as the Panthers started to dissolve, so did Kathleen and Eldridge's partnership.

So without further ado, let's get into some Black history for real. It's the middle of the night in Oakland, 1968. A visibly pregnant Kathleen Cleaver nervously shuffles around a poorly lit living room. Her husband Eldridge watches her pacing silhouette from the couch. Relax, Kathleen.

But if he's being honest with himself, he's nervous too. Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panther Party's Minister of Information, is out on bail and scheduled to return to jail in just a few days. He's being tried for the attempted murder of a police officer. Eldridge managed to survive a shootout that left his 17-year-old comrade Bobby Hutton dead and two cots injured. Now he's being blamed for the whole thing.

Eldridge swears up and down it was the cops who ambushed him and Bobby. Kathleen has no reason to doubt him, especially given law enforcement's history of targeting the radical black liberation group. But she also knows Eldridge's word is highly unlikable to convince a jury, even if it's true.

As communications secretary, she also has a leadership role in the party. And this sort of violence and legal jeopardy comes with the territory. But as she stares down at her belly, she understands there's more at stake than just Eldridge's freedom. Kathleen rushes to the window and peers through the blinds. A car pulls up with its headlights turned off.

She can barely make it out in the darkness, but that, of course, is by design. She only recognizes the car because of its timing. For a moment, she's afraid that someone else might recognize it, too. But the street looks clear from her perspective.

Eldridge stands up and hugs his anxious wife goodbye. Kathleen still holds on tightly even after Eldridge relaxes his embrace. She understands why he wants to flee the country and she stood by almost every other decision he's made. But she can't shake the feeling that this whole situation would end poorly. She wishes Eldridge would give her some words of comfort. Instead,

A husband simply kisses her on the forehead and pulls away. He grabs his bag and heads outside. Kathleen shivers in the doorway as she watches Eldridge enter the dark car. If there's anyone who can survive a life in exile, it's Eldridge. But can she survive? Can the baby? Can the Black Panther Party itself, without one of its most valuable members, survive?

Eldridge is barely down the street, and already Kathleen feels incredibly lonely. But as the car turns south to head towards the border, she feels something else too, empowered. There are so many big decisions she'll have to make on her own now, and it's been a while since she's called the shots for herself. Whether they lead to a poor ending or not, those decisions will be hers, at least until she and Eldridge are reunited. ♪

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From Wondery, this is Black History For Real, where we chronicle the stories of movers and shakers from Black history all around the world. The stories will inspire you, educate you, and more often than not, leave you shaking your damn heads. I'm Francesca Ramsey. And I'm Conscious Lee. This episode marks the finale in our four-part series of Women of the Black Panther Party. Today, we're telling the story of Kathleen Cleaver. ♪

While the majority of Black Panthers were women, Kathleen was part of a select few who held notable positions within the organization. As communications secretary, she broke new ground as the first woman in the party's decision-making body. And she played a crucial role in shaping and shaking up the Panthers' views on gender. Though her journey as an activist had long been interconnected with her larger-than-life husbands, the undeniable strength of her own voice would ultimately lead her to chart her own path.

This is episode four, Red Flags. It's 1958 and 13-year-old Juette Kathleen Neal stares out the window of a plane. She can see the Philippines on the horizon. Sure, she's a black girl from the segregated South, but this isn't her first time flying over such a far-flung place.

Kathleen was born to highly educated parents in Dallas, Texas. Her father became a diplomat in the Foreign Service a few years ago, and his work has taken the family to countries like India, Liberia, and Sierra Leone before moving here to the Philippines. These travels exposed Kathleen to exciting and different beliefs, including socialism and communism. Oh, she was getting flewed around. She was outside, outside. Kathleen is privileged beyond what most girls in her community could ever dream.

If you didn't know why she was finally heading back to the United States, maybe you would even call her blessed. Unfortunately, politics and the economic systems aren't the only education Kathleen receives overseas. After her brother was diagnosed with leukemia, she knew things would be vastly different. But she could never have imagined how much she would lose. For months, she was forced to wake up every day and see this person that she loved wither away.

When her brother finally passed away, Kathleen promised herself that she would live the life that he never could. A life that was free. And she would fight tooth and nail for it. It was a lesson she would never forget.

Her brother's death, combined with her father's work, left the Neals no other choice but to return to the States. Now they were headed to Pennsylvania, where Kathleen was to attend a recently desegregated Quaker boarding school near Philadelphia. Kathleen would excel at the Quaker High School, continuing a lifelong commitment to education. She never forgot the promise she made to herself after her brother's passing, which inspired her to get involved in student activism in college.

But her activism stateside brought her face to face with a new reality. Black life was always under threat. And the steps it would take to fulfill her promise would only become more and more dangerous.

Kathleen knows she can use her passion for education to make a change in her community. That's why she joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, also known as SNCC, the foremost student-led organization of the civil rights movement. And although Kathleen has worked her way up to becoming the secretary at the New York office, she's grown frustrated with the organization's commitment to nonviolence.

As an educator, when we go over the lesson, the civil rights, I'm always very critical of how we frame the opposition to nonviolence and not the opposition in terms of racism, but the opposition in terms of like the other strategy. I recognize that.

A lot of our ancestors in that time really came from heavily Christian backgrounds that also witnessed Gandhi be able to kind of take down British colonialism with an Indian. We got to recognize every six days.

There's a country in the world that celebrated independence because the British were so damn good in colonizing. So with that being said, I think that when we start thinking about like nonviolence, it's always kind of pigeonholed in the saying that anybody that was opposed to nonviolence liked violence. Right. And when this story kind of progresses more, it's going to be illustrated why that is a almost unethical way to analyze self-defense.

Well, yeah, it's always positioned as the person who's being oppressed needs to be the bigger person, that you need to show a level of respect and human decency to your oppressors. And to your point, it's not necessarily fair, but it's also not necessarily reasonable. You know, I saw a quote that said something along the lines of the opposite of oppression is not peace, right? Just because someone is treating you badly doesn't

This insistence that you have to lie down and take it, again, puts this unreasonable level of pressure on people who have, you know, they're in life and death situations. And it's just when you're in that situation, it's really, really hard to say, all right, I'm going to do what's right and I'm not going to fight back. When oftentimes fighting back is what you have to do in order to gain your independence and gain your freedom.

Most definitely. And if we being real, simply stating it, a lot of times people are experiencing peace because of brutality. And it's just like, for who? Peace for who? Of course, Kathleen has respect for proponents of nonviolence like Dr. King. But as she files news clippings day in and day out, she's confronted with various racist acts from across the country. The concept seems ill-equipped for dealing with their reality.

She wishes that she'd see more stories of black people fighting back rather than just getting abused and murdered. There is a place for pacifism, but there's gotta be a place for resistance too.

A colleague enters. His face is solemn. Bad news. Well, it can't be worse than what she's been reading in the paper. Kathleen tells him to spit it out. Spit it out. And when he does, her heart jumps into her throat. She was wrong. The news is much, much worse than any of the clippings she's been sorting.

They've just received news that SNCC member Sammy Young was killed in Tuskegee, Alabama, for trying to desegregate a whites-only restroom. To make matters worse, Kathleen knew Sammy from her days living in Tuskegee as a child. He was only 21. He was shot in the face at a gas station. ♪

That is the reason why we should never think about nonviolence being opposed to violence because the violence is already there. The reason why nonviolence is a response is because people are being violent. The reason why people are being self-defense is because people are being violent. In a lot of the lesson plans in this country, when we start talking about the civil rights movement, especially Dr. King, we have a way of saying,

criminalizing other people that were critical of how nonviolence, you know what I'm saying, didn't work if people didn't have a conscience. Shout out to, you know what I'm saying, stuff with Carmichael, a.k.a. Kwame Ture. We know that when we start thinking about resisting strategies, they resist in violence. So don't sensationalize or center the people that's resisting the violence as being violent.

That's very important, especially when we start thinking about how movements and grassroots organizing and oppression and systems operate, because that language only perpetuates things that's anti us in this conversation.

Kathleen balls the remaining papers up, throws them in the trash, and pushes past her colleague on the verge of tears. She knows Snick will respond to this, and she'll do her job to help get Sammy's story on the front page of these same newspapers she's been sorting. But is this all she can do? It can't be. It can't always be this way.

A few months later, Kathleen organizes a student conference at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. She still feels guilty she isn't doing more after Sammy's murder, but she's excited for the lineup she's secured.

She's especially eager to hear from a radical author and activist named Eldridge Cleaver. He's the Minister of Information for the Black Panther Party and has just been released from Folsom State Prison after serving time for rape. While locked up, he'd written the groundbreaking memoir, Soul on Ice. The book set off a firestorm because of Eldridge's confessions. He wrote that he'd learned to use rape as a tool to get back at white society. I'll never forget.

The first time I heard about Solon Ice and Eldridge Cleaver and things that he was doing, I was a college policy debater at the University of Oklahoma, and I was literally competing for a first round bid. I'm trying to be one of the top 16 teams in the country. We were debating against these black women. You feel me? These black women end up being the first black women to win a national championship in college debate. But they had brought up this Eldridge Cleaver practice.

practicing and how to perfect you feel me trigger warning sexual violence rape you see what I'm saying I mean in a way where he perfected it against black women's bodies because he was going to unleash it on white women now he did come to say you feel me he he he he apologized but it's like I don't I think that we still have to unpackage you feel me like what he yeah well and and to that end it's like

okay, but what does an apology do, right? Like when we think about repairing harm, saying the words, I'm sorry, is the bare minimum. Like it doesn't undo the behavior. It doesn't make whole the part of those women that was taken from them forcibly. And so it's really hard to reconcile the fact that someone would

volunteer this information and share it as if it was a legitimate technique, right? And the reality is that sexual violence has been used historically against communities in order to advance positions or political movements or to take over certain areas. Like it's not anything new.

But when I read about this, I was really stunned to think that this could be something that someone would acknowledge as like, yeah, I did this on purpose as a tactic and whatever.

Like literally you you held joke you reap you wreaked havoc on your community as a revolutionary tactic where you made black women more exposable and disposable to gender violence in the name of taking it out against white people. Yeah, man, you don't get show you smoking dope and dog food if you think that there's something rational, you know what I'm saying? But I think that like I said earlier in the episode, though, this this this Eldridge Cleaver guy.

Man, he gonna continue to surprise you throughout this episode, because this ain't done yet. But Kathleen had flipped through the book ravenously. The passages about practicing his rapes on Black women before targeting white women were especially disturbing. But she found comfort in his acknowledgement that all this was a mistake. That's red flag number one. She was even further comforted by his argument that his mistakes did not diminish the utility of other violent tactics in fighting for liberation.

Ugh, the bar is in hell. You know, I did rape those ladies. But, you know, in hindsight, it wasn't a good idea. I mean, I just, I want to, like, go back in time and shake Kathleen and be like, girl, love yourself. It's just mind-boggling to think that you could read somebody say these horrific things and still be...

And still put them on a pedestal and see like, oh, wow, like this is somebody that I admire and ultimately become attracted to is just really difficult for me to wrap my mind around. But I think the thing that I appreciate about this series specifically is that we don't shy away from the fact that

People are complicated. That people can do good things and bad things, that people can have good politic and bad politics simultaneously, and that no one is all good and no one is all bad. And that doesn't dismiss the realities of the negative things that they've done. But we do ourselves a disservice to pretend that those negative things haven't happened. And so, you know, that's just the reality of who Kathleen was in addition to the reality of who Eldridge Cleaver was.

The talk is about to start and Kathleen takes a seat in the front row. She's got other things to do to make sure the conference runs smoothly, but she can't miss this. She probably wouldn't admit it, but she got a little cute too. Her afro couldn't have been any more coiffed or rounder, and she's slaying it in some knee-high leather boots. ♪

Finally, Eldridge makes his way to the stage. He's handsome in a mischievous kind of way with bushy eyebrows and a goatee. He speaks with a deep voice and Kathleen is immediately enraptured. Revolutionary violence and counter-revolutionary violence. A distinction between a just war and an unjust war. That's what we mean in the Black Panther Party when we say that the old printer has no right to

which the oppressed are bound to respect. I'm not keep on bringing up like personal things, but recently I was able to go to Boston and I went to the, um,

the Boston Tea Party, like museum thing. And I was there going on a tour. And something that kept on just like jumping in my heart, in my mind, was how revolution and revolutionary ideas and tactics is something that is very romanticized in our country when we start thinking about like the colonists. But in every other instance, you feel me? Revolution, revolutionary tactics, revolutionary ideas, revolutionary ideology is folded into being like

It's folded into being, you know what I'm saying, very anti-establishment. And that right there is something that just baffles me and something that comes to mind right now in thinking about all this revolutionary talk and how this revolutionary talk really got them boys put on like FBI most wanted list. Yeah. And girls. I mean, I was saying boys, like, you know, Southern non-gender people.

That was non-gendered. Yeah. No, I mean, this is something that we talk about a lot. It's that thing of like, it's okay when I do it, but not okay when you do it. And again, this is not anything new historically, but especially in this instance, the idea of revolution being led by Black people is always going to be demonized no matter what. Because you Negroes ain't grateful. I'm playing with that. Yeah.

Everything he's saying is what Kathleen's been searching for. The Black Panther Party understands that more needs to be done to protect the people. On top of a radical perspective on self-defense, she's amazed by how Eldridge was able to articulate the incorporating Black self-determination into local community structures. After the talk, Kathleen is the first in line to speak with Eldridge. A weird feeling overcomes her. Bashfulness?

She hasn't really felt that way before, so she wouldn't know. She's embarrassed by her awkwardness, but Eldridge just smiles. He hands her a card with his number on it. He promises they can talk about anything and everything she's ever wanted later. But Kathleen knows he's headed back to California soon. She'll be stuck on the other side of the country, away from him, and away from where the Panthers are based. There won't be time to talk about everything that's inspired her. Kathleen wants to get involved with the Panthers,

But as she takes in the card, she realizes the best way to get closer to Eldridge is to change her address. I mean, I know we haven't marked this as red flag number two, but in my mind, moving across the country for an admitted rapist is a glaring, a bouquet of red flags.

I would say. What? Listen, man. That's that pink flag I was talking about? Think about it. Think about it. Bruh, I understand. He's just apologetically talked about, unapologetically practicing gender violence, raping black women to get back at white women, and you was captivated by his articulation? No, no, girl. Human danger, girl. Yeah, I just, I mean, again. Listen, Kathleen, I know you still lie. Listen, Kathleen, listen.

I'm just a youngster. You feel me? I don't mean no disrespect at all. You know what I mean? I'm just giving my God honest opinion on this. You know what I mean? And I feel like you much older now. So if you're listening to me right now, I feel like you would agree. But listen, no disrespect at all. You know what I mean? Thank you. I appreciate you.

Yeah, I mean, look, the reality is we cannot go back in time and change history. And you're correct. I have the privilege of being able to look back on Kathleen's story.

choices and actions with the foresight of knowing what they will lead towards. And the last thing I want to do is, you know, victim blame because unfortunately people who are abusers are often known to be very charming. That's the reason that they're able to wreck so much havoc. They are intoxicating. They can come into any room and demand attention from people. They're really good at that.

So, you know, again, it's easy to say like, oh, my God, girl, don't do it because we know where this is going. But man, it's difficult to hear each moment in this story and realize like, oh, God, this is just this is going down a path that is that is very scary and is very dangerous. The last thing I say on this is when when we was preparing for this episode,

I kept on having to think about, damn, imagine how normalized violence to women is just based off of like how this went down.

It has to be so normalized and every day that you damn near didn't even bat an eye. I mean, again, I feel like I'm repeating myself here because we've definitely said this or I've definitely said this in other episodes. But unfortunately, we've come so far, but not far enough because that violence is still normalized. Look at how many movies and TV shows and movies.

you know, crime podcasts sensationalize violence against women and uses violence against women as plot points, as character development, as ways to... as inciting incidents that inspire men to do the right thing. I mean, and then...

What ends up happening is when it happens in real life, people diminish it or they say it didn't really happen or it's something that you need to get over. So to your point, it was normalized at that time. But I would argue that today it's still normalized. And even just the way that people use the word rape as a way like for comedic effect. I mean, there's there's.

successful comedians that are telling rape jokes without actually understanding that those jokes normalize gender-based violence so that when you actually encounter in real life, you're desensitized to it.

Yeah, yeah. I know the first time I started really hearing it being normalized to words was in sports settings and hearing somebody losing or hearing somebody get beat. And it'll be like, man, you're getting R-word. And it'll be like the ideas you've been taking advantage of and dominated. But you recognize what is being said when it was like, man, they got their ass beat last night. They got R.

You feel me? It was like, whoa, whoa. Man, the score was 60 to 20. It's like, damn. But I recognize through language and rhetoric, that's how sometimes we start to be able to, I feel like, negotiate how violence happens. And I feel like from listening to Kathleen and thinking about Kathleen, you can tell that she grew up in an environment where it was, hey, two plus two is four. Dogs bark and women experience violence. Next.

Shortly after meeting Eldridge, Kathleen moves to San Francisco in 1967. She joins the Black Panther Party, and by the new year, Eldridge and Kathleen are married. They're so inseparable, many people refer to them simply as the Cleavers.

Although she knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park, Kathleen is immediately confronted just how difficult it would be for the organization to live up to its possibilities. It was these possibilities that had given her so much hope in Nashville. But what was happening on the ground was something else. She joined just a few weeks after Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton was charged for killing an Oakland policeman.

prompting Yui to flee the country. The party leadership was under siege by the police and the FBI, and this organization was being pulled in several different directions by competing factions.

While more than qualified...

she often feels overwhelmed by the pressure as she speaks on the lack of Black ownership. However, knowing that the Black Panthers are the solution gives her the confidence needed when debating Black issues on national television. On every level of the society, there's aggression, there's hostility, suppression, and violence directed against Black people. The program of the Black Panther Party, originally started as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, is to move to defend and protect

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Arguing the case for the Black Panthers on TV is exciting, but one of Kathleen's most fulfilling duties as communications secretary has brought her here to the lovely beachside property on the coast. It's here where Kathleen organizes healing retreats for women in the Black Panther Party, empowering women who have been living underground, who have been tortured, who have been exiled. Today, they sit around the campfire sharing their experiences of state violence.

Despite their traumatic stories, Kathleen always feels so relieved to hear them. There aren't many outlets for Black women to release their pain, even in the party. In fact, so much of these women's stories involve men in the organization. When they share these experiences, Kathleen doesn't always know what to say. It's hard to fight alongside men who would sometimes rather be fighting you. But she knows they have to do it anyway. She reminds the women, liberation is not transactional.

You don't fight for it because you want something in return. You fight for it because you know it's the right thing to do. They nod solemnly. She wonders if they really believe it. She thinks about her arguments with Eldridge and wonders if she really believes it. At the end of the retreat, they will all commit to working harder to accomplish the goals of the party. But each time Kathleen is forced to confront this conflict between the party and the Black Sisterhood, it will get harder to make that choice.

Kathleen, like the other women of the Black Panther Party, understood the problem of misogyny in the organization. But she didn't find this problem addressed in white feminist spaces or think it was often portrayed fairly. Given the circumstances, the organization was quite progressive on a lot of fronts. So what's the role of women in the Black Panther Party? It's the same as men. I mean, we don't have, you know, it's not like a women's role and a man's role. This was a concept that was in the culture, but it wasn't in our organization.

It definitely wasn't in my head. Kathleen believed that the problems of Black and white women were so different, they could not possibly be solved at the same type of organization, nor met by the same type of activity. She told Essence magazine, I could understand how a white woman cannot relate to a white man. And I feel sorry for white women who have to deal with that type of person.

In 1970, the Black Panther Party took a formal position on the liberation of women. Did the United States Congress make any statement on the liberation of women? Did the Congress enable the Equal Rights Amendment to become part of the Constitution? Did the Oakland police issue a position against gender discrimination? It is in this context that gender relations, a term which we didn't have back then, in the Black Panther Party should be examined.

The women of the Panther Party were before their times in so many ways that they were doing intersectional work and engaging in an intersectional framework before Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw was credited for coining the term. And I think it's something that we should give these women credit for, you feel me? Especially thinking about how their femininity and their blackness was interwoven through the Black Panther movement and how that like really brought forth policies.

Yeah, I mean, it's really powerful to think about the fact that despite being met with resistance at every turn, these women continued to advocate for themselves and make space for them to talk about the challenges that they were facing.

and give voice to it because it is really, really difficult when you say, hey, I'm being mistreated and people say, no, you're not. That's not happening. Or that's just the way it's supposed to be. You're a woman. What else do you expect? We can't deal with your issues until we deal with X, Y, and Z first is incredibly frustrating. So making space for women to have those conversations within the organization despite the pushback is

really took a lot of courage, but also laid the foundation for the conversations that we're continuing to have today. And what's eerie to me is that through the face of all this abuse and brutality, these women still felt like the Black Panther Party was the most progressive of its time. It's 1968. Kathleen and Eldridge sit on the floor of their apartment, organizing signage for a huge Panther rally taking place the next day.

Kathleen is struggling to stay focused. She knows this is a very vulnerable time in the organization. The feds haven't stopped at forcing Huey to flee the country. The Cleavers are deeply critical about the way the party has responded. Eldridge especially thinks they need to take more aggressive steps towards protecting themselves and their secrets amid rampant police infiltration.

His stance has caused increasing tension with members like Elaine Brown, who argue to focus less on aggressive posturing and more on the party's successful survival programs. Meanwhile, dozens of their comrades have already been killed by cops. Eldridge sees Kathleen put one of the signs in the wrong pile and sucks his teeth as he corrects a mistake. It's one thing to be upset about the passing of so many colleagues and another to let it affect your work.

He tells Kathleen she's gonna have to man up. Man up. She knew what she was getting into. And her getting over emotional is why he was so wary about the feminization of the organization. She's one of the strongest women he's ever met. If she can't even prepare for a rally without breaking down, what does that say about the future of the party? That it's slowly being taken over by women and too many sissy-fied men.

Is that red flag number three? Is that you? This one really hit me in the gut because I am somebody who has really fought to remain composed when I'm feeling upset about things. I remember when I was younger, I was like,

I would be like in class and I would be passionate about something we were talking about and I would burst into tears. And it wasn't because I was sad, but it was just because I was feeling so overwhelmed by my emotions. And it was like my brain and my mouth weren't communicating. And...

I've thought that my whole life because this idea of like being emotional as a woman is seen as a weakness when in reality, our emotions are a superpower. Like being able to be vulnerable and empathetic to other people, I feel like is what makes me stronger.

a good writer and a good host and a good creative because I can put myself in other people's shoes. And as an activist, that same vulnerability and empathy is important to be able to advocate for other people. And so it's so frustrating.

To hear that that same empathy, the thing that again is a superpower, was seen as a weakness because it's associated with femininity or being a woman or being, you know, sissified, quote unquote, for a man. And in reality, that level of empathy has the power to like bring people together and create a better world for everyone. And I just I wish more people were able to accept and really believe that.

As a man, I acknowledge that being frustrated, being mad, being angry are also emotions. Those are just emotions that are given credence because there are certain people that are justified in acting off of those emotions while other people are trivialized for always already being emotional. I think that when we apply intersectional lens to something like emotions,

I can acknowledge that, you feel me, black women get a double entendre of, I feel like, being trivialized with how they show emotions. Because I know being black people, when we're not passive or docile, when we don't just take our ass up and people think we should, we're seen as being over-emotional.

And I acknowledge that when you put that intersectional lens on it for black women, it usually means that you just, you know, extremely emotional and unfit for leadership and this, that, and the other. And that's the reason why this series on the women of the Panther movement to me is so magnificent.

Yeah, I think about how often I like censor myself and I really go out of my way to seem quote unquote rational. It's almost like I'm tone policing myself and I've gotten really good at it. And unfortunately, to your point, no matter how I frame things, especially if I'm talking about racism,

experiencing sexism or racism or any type of oppressive system, people are going to call me angry. People are going to call me unprofessional. And so I've gotten to a place where I'm like, well, I'm just going to say it however I'm going to say it. I cannot control how you are going to receive it. And I know that even when I have a big smile on my face, people say, oh my God, she's being so aggressive and she, I feel uncomfortable and da-da-da-da-da. And I, I,

I hate that it's taken me this long to get to this point, but I'm so thankful that I'm here now. And so it's always frustrating and disappointing when I learn that women that I've looked up to and women that in my mind I see as pillars of, you know, progressiveness and strength and empowerment and realize that they've encountered those same judgments on their emotions and their feelings and the way that they express themselves.

And that, unfortunately, it's just something that's part of our experience as women, but especially as Black women. Oh, man. Kathleen swallows her retort. She knows that the liberation of Black people has to come before her feelings. And Eldridge is just arguing for being as effective as possible. But if her perspective is always dismissed, can she ever be fully liberated? Isn't she one of the Black people they're supposed to be fighting for?

Eldridge has taught her so much, but Kathleen is starting to wonder if maybe she has something to teach him too. He doesn't take much time to reflect on the mental and emotional aspects of all this constant violence. It affects his work too, even if he doesn't know it. But before she can say anything, the front door is smashed open.

A tactical team storms in with guns aimed directly at the couple. They trample over the rally signs and brutally force the couple to the ground, squeezing handcuffs around Kathleen's wrists. She stares at her husband from the ground as an officer tells them they are under arrest on suspicion of hiding guns and ammunition. She's looking for something in Eldridge's face, understanding, an apology, but all she sees is rage in his eyes.

When the raid on the Cleavers' home yielded no hidden weapons, they were released. But the violence was just ramping up. It was only later that year that Eldridge and Bobby Hutton got in that fatal shootout with Oakland police. And that's red flag number four. But who's counting? So it's in this context of this escalating violence that Eldridge staged his escape. He fled to Mexico and later went into exile in Algeria.

which had just ended its war for independence from French colonizers. The new Algerian president nationalized the country's oil and gas and was using the money to fund liberation armies across the globe. Cleaver was hoping to take advantage of this support to encourage an uprising against the American government. Eldridge found himself at home among an initially friendly communist government and continued organizing for Black liberation abroad.

A few months later, Kathleen joined him in Algeria, where she gave birth to a son and a daughter shortly after. But any peace for the growing family would be short-lived. Eldridge came to believe that Huey Newton was becoming increasingly authoritarian and embezzling funds from the Black Panther Party, which would exacerbate their clashes and the party's direction.

This came to a head when the two men confronted each other on a San Francisco radio show and each tried to expel the other. But as chairman, Huey's words carried the most weight. In 1971, the Cleavers formally left the party. As a new mother, the stress of this fracture and Eldridge's growing tendency for violence caused Kathleen to spiral into a deep depression. It would take her years to figure out how to crawl out from it.

It's 1980, and Eldridge sits across the table from a journalist from The New Yorker. Kathleen watches off from the side, a frown on her face. After a few long years in exile, the Cleavers return to the United States. In Algeria, they'd set up an alternative to the Black Panther Party called the Revolutionary People's Communication Network. Despite Kathleen's warnings, Eldridge doubled down on his aggressive posturing.

He was accused of murdering a man on Algerian soil whom he had suspected of having an affair with Kathleen. He also coordinated the delivery of a hijacked American airplane to the country, even after the hijackers had secured a $500,000 ransom. The Algerian government confiscated the money, but the administration had become increasingly pissed off by his rabble-rousing, and the couple were ultimately forced to leave the country.

The international ties of the Black Panther Party and a lot of the pro-Black movements or a lot of the pro-Black organizations during that time is really kind of mind-blowing when you start to see how much people started seeing that their struggle was interconnected. For some reason, Eldridge was only found guilty of assault when he returned.

And Kathleen suspects that whatever that reason is has led to this interview. Her husband has become increasingly erratic, but has never acted as strange as this. Even though it's been reported that Bobby Hutton was shot more than 12 times after he had already surrendered and stripped down to his underwear to prove he was not armed, Eldridge is now insistent to the reporter that the police narrative of the ambush is correct.

Kathleen understands as much as anyone that you have to make sacrifices for survival, especially when you have children. But she never thought her husband would sacrifice the movement. The Panthers are on their last leg, and this will be their death knell. Even though she had to quit, the group was still family. Kathleen never thought Eldridge would make such a monumental decision without her. Eldridge tells the reporter, we need police as heroes. And Kathleen flinches so hard she knocks over a lamp.

Both of the others notice. She mumbles an apology and exits the bathroom, leaving them to their betrayal of an interview. She throws cold water on her face. The journalist implies that maybe this interview was a payoff for the judge granting Eldridge probation instead of prison time. As horrible as that would be, it would be even better than what Kathleen suspects. Maybe this is who Eldridge really is now.

With every new trauma, Eldridge has become more right-wing and extremist and has turned further away from Kathleen, despite demanding greater loyalty. Maybe this is what happens when you respond to violence with more violence instead of taking time to heal. Kathleen looks at the wet face staring back at her in the mirror. She doesn't recognize her husband anymore. Has this always been his true identity?

And now her identity has been so tied to his that she almost forgotten the promise she made to herself when her brother died. To do everything she can to live free. Is this everything? As she stares down her reflection, she barely recognizes herself. It's the middle of the night and Kathleen nervously shuffles about an unlit living room once again, this time waiting for the door. She doesn't know what she'll say when it opens. She's not sure there's much left to say.

Finally, Eldridge enters, jumping in fright when he turns on the light and sees his furious wife. Kathleen stops her pacing and gets straight to the point. She knows about the love child, and this isn't his first. He lied when she discovered that one. But there's nothing he can say now to disprove what she just saw with her own two eyes. Not that it matters. This time, Eldridge doesn't even try to lie.

He's been studying Mormonism and has come to the belief that it's his right to have several wives. Kathleen buries her face in her hands. Fool. Even if I did agree with you having multiple wives, you ain't married to that other woman. Man, this man right here got more spots than a leopard, man. Just, uh...

Red flag, I want to say like number 500, number 501. Red flag number 475. I really lost count at this point because it's like so many flags that the orange and the pink and the reds is all starting to blend together. Eldridge slams his hand on the table. Kathleen doesn't understand.

He shouts that he's Captain Cleaver and explains that their children are a part of a nonsensical scheme to take over Treasure Island off of San Francisco coast in search of buried gold. Oh my gosh. I mean, it's just like, he is all over the place. Kathleen turns to the staircase when she hears whimpering. Her frightened children stand frozen, terrified and in tears.

Kathleen had considered leaving Eldridge many times over the last several years, but she would always think about how slavery had torn apart Black families for centuries and how the Panther family had been so violently torn apart too. She had learned to conquer her guilt among the collapse of the organization. Now, as she stares into her children's wet eyes, Kathleen would have to really put what she'd learned to good use.

Her children were teaching her that there is no liberation in having a son who grows up thinking that treating women the way Eldridge treats her is okay, or in having a daughter who grows up thinking that it's okay to stay. Kathleen was still a student after all these years. Kathleen had been shot at, arrested, abused, and forced into exile, but she'd never faced a harder truth than the one that she was facing now. It was time to leave.

Kathleen left Eldridge in 1981, just after the dissolution of the Black Panther Party. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do. Kathleen didn't initiate the collapse of the Panthers, but she had to initiate the separation of her family. She picked right back up on her education, receiving a full scholarship from Yale. In 1987, she finally divorced Eldridge and continued her education by getting her Jewish doctorate from Yale Law.

After graduating with her J.D., Kathleen acquired numerous jobs in the legal field, including law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia. She is currently serving as senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law. She has worked on numerous political campaigns, including Freedom for Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and Habeas Corpus for Geronimo Pratt.

Kathleen, who received a fellowship named after sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois at Harvard University, could be understood as an example of what we call today black excellence. But Du Bois would say Kathleen is one of the talented 10th. Following the footsteps of her father, who used the education he received at Du Bois' alma mater, Fitch University, Kathleen worked tirelessly to change the trajectory of his children's lives.

And after everything she experienced, she continues to create an education as a tool for black liberation to this day. Kathleen Cleaver forged her own path. While standing shoulder to shoulder with the Sada Shakur, Afeni Shakur, and Elaine Brown, the freedom fighting women of the Black Panther Party, they stood on business.

If you like Black History for Real, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

This is the final episode in our four-part series, Women of the Black Panther Party. We use multiple sources when researching our stories, but the New York Times, The Nation, and All That's Interesting were extremely helpful. A note, our scenes contain reenactments and dramatized details for narrative cohesiveness. ♪

Black History for Real is hosted by me, Consciously. And me, Francesca Ramsey. Black History for Real is a production of Wondery and DCP Entertainment. This episode was written by Hari Zied. Sound design by Aaron May. The theme song is by Terrace Martin. For DCP Entertainment, associate producers are Quentin Hill, Brittany Temple, and Chris Colbert. The

The executive producers for Wondery are Aaron O'Flaherty, Marshall Louis, and Candace Manriquez-Wren.

Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast, Against the Odds. In each episode, we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who live to tell the tale. In our next season, it's July 6th, 1988, and workers are settling into the night shift aboard Piper Alpha, the world's largest offshore oil rig.

Home to 226 men, the rig is stationed in the stormy North Sea off the coast of Scotland. At around 10 p.m., workers accidentally trigger a gas leak that leads to an explosion and a fire. As they wait to be rescued, the workers soon realize that Piper Alpha has transformed into a death trap. Follow Against the Odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app.