SOURCE: "Cleaver's Vision of America and the New White Radical: A Legacy of Malcolm X," in Negro American Literature Forum, Vol. 4, No. 1, March, 1970, pp. 12-21.

[In the following essay, Nower discusses literary and historical antecedents of key themes of Soul on Ice, emphasizing the national hypocrisy of white Americans in reference to freedom, justice, and personal and political self-determination among black Americans.]

Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party, is a collection of essays that conveys a world perspective on oppression and its sources, and sets forth the major tool of liberation: self-determination. The essays, ranging from a description of the author's spiritual rebirth to the political views that are reflected in the 10 Point Platform of the Black Panther Party, to a discussion of black-white sex, are written in one of the liveliest of contemporary prose styles.

Cleaver addresses himself above...