Soul on Ice [Paperback]

The now-classic memoir that shocked, outraged, and ultimately changed the way America looked at the civil rights movement and the black experience.

By turns shocking and lyrical, unblinking and raw, the searingly honest memoirs of Eldridge Cleaver are a testament to his unique place in American history. Cleaver writes inSoul on Ice, "I'm perfectly aware that I'm in prison, that I'm a Negro, that I've been a rapist, and that I have a Higher Uneducation." What Cleaver shows us, on the pages of this now classic autobiography, is how much he was a man."A collection of essays straight out of Dante'sInferno. The hell is there, and its name is America...as with Malcolm X, Cleaver's book is a spiritual autobiography. An odyssey of a soul in search of itself, groping toward a personal humanism which will give meaning to life...the book is important...the book is extraordinary."—Shane Stevens,The Progressive

"A remarkable book...beautifully written...Eldridge Cleaver makes you twist and flinch...he throws light on the dark areas that we wish he would leave alone."—The Nation

"Brilliant and revealing."—New York Times Book Review

"All the essays [in Soul on Ice] deal with racial hurt, racial struggle, and racial pride...Eldridge Cleaver is a promising and powerful writer, an intelligent and turbulent and passionate and eloquent man."—Robert Coles,Atlantic MonthlyEldridge Cleaver (1935–1998) wrote his magnum opus,Soul on Ice, while serving a prison sentence in the infamous Folsom State Prison before joining the Black Panther Party.Soul on Ice

Folsom Prison
October 9, 1965

I'm perfectly aware that I'm in prison, that I'm a Negro, that I've been a rapist, and that I have a Higher Uneducation. I never know what significance I'm supposed to attach to these factors. But I have a l£ª