Kathleen Cleaver (1945-)

One of the most influential Black Panther Party leaders, Kathleen Cleaver, created an impact that continues to last and add to her legacy. Below is a piece from an article from BlackPast.org.

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"Kathleen Neal Cleaver emerged in the late 1960s as one of the most influential leaders of the Black Panther Party (BPP).  Neal was born in Memphis, Texas on May 13, 1945. Her father Ernest Neal was a sociology professor at Wiley College. Her mother, Juette (Johnson) Neal, earned a master’s degree in mathematics. When Neal was a child, her father accepted a job as the Director of the Rural Life Council at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Six years later, her father joined the Foreign Service and the Neal family moved overseas. They lived in India, the Philippines, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The family returned to the United States after the death of Neal’s brother from leukemia. Neal relocated to Pennsylvania, and graduated with honors in 1963 from the George School, near Philadelphia.

Cleaver also worked as a law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, and was a senior lecturer at Yale in the African American Studies Department. Cleaver is currently serving as senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law. She has written several books including Memories of Love and War, Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party, and Black Flags and Windmills, and currently lives in New Haven with documentary filmmaker St. Clair Bourne."

Reference

BlackPast.org