Eldridge Cleaver - Soul On Ice (1968)

Soul On Ice (1968)

While in prison, he wrote a number of philosophical and political essays, first published in Ramparts magazine and then in book form as Soul on Ice. In the essays, Cleaver traces his own development from a "supermasculine menial" to a radical black liberationist, and his essays became highly influential in the black power movement.

In the most controversial part of the book, Cleaver acknowledges committing acts of rape, stating that he initially raped black women in the ghetto "for practice," and then embarked on the serial rape of white women. He described these crimes as politically inspired, motivated by a genuine conviction that the rape of white women was "an insurrectionary act." When he began writing Soul on Ice, he unequivocally renounced rape and all his previous reasoning about it. However he refused to show any remorse for his career as a rapist, or acknowledge any debt to society, claiming in Soul on Ice that "the blood of Vietnamese peasants has paid off all my debts".

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", love letters written to Cleaver's attorney, Beverly Axelrod; and "White Woman, Black Man", on gender relations, black masculinity, and sexuality.