Eldridge Cleaver

Civil rights and racial equality had been promised to African Americans in the 1950s and early 1960s. In many bigcity neighborhoods the words of the politicians rang hollow, and the promised changes had never materialized. Bad schools, poor housing, and lack of opportunity was causing a great seething anger among the black urban poor. In addition, police forces in inner-city neighborhoods were often 98 percent white and people in these ghettos viewed the police as an occupying army—much like the United States army that was occupying South Vietnam.

Eldridge Cleaver eloquently put these feelings into words. His comparisons of the police in Watts to the U.S. Army in Vietnam were taken to heart by blacks—and many whites. Cleaver's book Soul on Ice was written while the author was serving time in California's Folsom Prison for...