Kathleen Neal Cleaver (May 13, 1945) is an American professor of law, known for her involvement with the Black Panther Party. More: www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&tag=tra0c7-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=f2eec329470933d84473beaba9521128&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=books&keywords=kathleen%20cleaver More on Chomsky: www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&tag=tra0c7-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=f59f33519f07c52545f466b310aa927a&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=books&keywords=chomsky Kathleen Neal was born in Dallas, Texas. Both of her parents had higher education; her father was a sociology professor at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas and her mother had a master's degree in mathematics. Soon after Kathleen was born, her father, Ernest Neal, accepted a job as the director of the Rural Life Council of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Six years later, Ernest joined the Foreign Service. The family moved abroad and lived in such countries as India, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Philippines. Kathleen returned to the United States to attend a Quaker boarding school near Philadelphia, George School. She graduated with honors in 1963. She continued her education at Oberlin College, and later transferred to Barnard College. In 1966, she left college for a secretarial job with the New York office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She was in charge of organizing a student conference at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. At the conference, Kathleen met the minister of information for the Black Panther Party, Eldridge Cleaver. She moved to San Francisco in November, 1967, to join the Black Panther Party. Kathleen Neal and Eldridge Cleaver were married on December 27, 1967. Cleaver became the communications secretary and the first female member of the Party's decision-making body. She also served as the spokesperson and press secretary. Notably, she organized the national campaign to free the Party's minister of defense, Huey Newton, who was jailed. In 1968 (the same year her husband ran for president on the Peace and Freedom ticket) she ran for California's 18th state assembly district, also as a candidate of the Peace and Freedom party. Cleaver received 2,778 votes[1] for 4.7% of the total vote, finishing third in a four candidate race.[2] As a result of their involvement with the Black Panther Party, the Cleavers were often the target of police investigations. The Cleavers' apartment was raided in 1968 before a Panther rally by the San Francisco Tactical Squad on the suspicion of hiding guns and ammunition. Later that year, Eldridge Cleaver staged a deliberate ambush of Oakland police officers during which two police officers were injured. Cleaver was wounded and fellow Black Panther member Bobby Hutton was killed in a shootout following the initial exchange of gunfire.[3] Charged with attempted murder, he jumped bail to flee to Cuba and later went to Algeria. Eldridge spent seven months in Cuba and was reunited with Kathleen in Algeria in 1969. Kathleen gave birth to their first son, Maceo, soon after arriving in Algeria. A year later in 1970 she gave birth to their daughter Joju Younghi Cleaver, while the family was in North Korea. In 1971, Huey Newton, a fellow party member, and Eldridge had a disagreement; this led to the expulsion of the International Branch of the Black Panther Party. The Cleavers formed a new organization called the Revolutionary People's Communication Network. Kathleen returned to promoting and speaking about the new organization. To accomplish this, she and the children moved back to New York. The Algerian government became disgruntled with Eldridge and the new organization. Eldridge was forced to leave the country secretly and meet up with Kathleen in Paris in 1973. Kathleen left for the United States later that year to arrange Eldridge's return and raise a defense fund. In 1974, the French government granted legal residency to the Cleavers and the family was finally reunited. After only a year, the Cleavers moved back to the United States, and Eldridge was sent to prison. He was tried for the shoot-out in 1968 and was found guilty of assault. He was sentenced to five years probation and 2,000 hours of community service. Kathleen went to work on the Eldridge Cleaver Defense Fund and Eldridge was freed on bail in 1976. Eldridge's legal situation was not finally resolved until 1980. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Cleaver

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