SOURCE: "To Mr. and Mrs. Yesterday," in New York Times Book Review, March 24, 1968, p. 3.

[In the following review, Hunter outlines the principal themes of Soul on Ice.]

Eldridge Cleaver is a 33 year-old black man, an ex-convict and former Muslim whose book, Soul on Ice, strongly affirms what the Commission on Civil Disorders just told us about our country. In Cleaver's words: "Old funny-styled, zipper-mouthed political night riders know nothing but to haul out an investigating committee to look into the disturbance to find the cause of the unrest among the youth. Look into a mirror! The cause is you, Mr. and Mrs. Yesterday, you with your forked tongues."

Without the report, it is easy to imagine that Cleaver's statement—a collection of essays written in prison—would probably have been written off by the inattentive uncommitted as the rantings of still another extremist. But Cleaver has an answer...