Cleage’s first novel, What Looks like Crazy on an
Ordinary Day (1998), is centered on the odyssey
of a woman who is diagnosed with HIV and the
way she interacts with people who either alien-
ate her or love her. It was selected by the Oprah
Book Club in October 1998 and appeared on the
New York Times best seller list for nine weeks. It
also was a Black Caucus of the American Library
Association Literary Award winner. Cleage is
also the author of a second novel, Wish I Had a
Red Dress. Her highly anthologized work can be
found in Double Stitch: Black Women Write about
Mothers and Daughters (1991), Black Drama in
America (1994), Contemporary Plays by Women of
Color (1995), and Bearing Witness: Contemporary
Works by African American Women Artists (1996).
The Theatre Communications Group published
an anthology of her plays, Flyin’ West’ and Other
Plays (1999).
While simultaneously publishing essays in
such popular magazines as ESSENCE, Ms., Vibe,
and Rap Pages, Cleage contributed essays to
several mainstream venues, including the New
York Times Book Review, in which she published
“Good Brother Blues.” Currently, she is a con-
tributing editor to Essence magazine. The ac-
complished playwright, cofounder of the literary
magazine Catalyst, and speaker has taught at
Spelman College and Smith College. Random
House published her third novel, Some Things I
Never Thought I’d Do, in 2004. Based in Atlanta,
Cleage is the mother of a daughter, Deignan, and
the wife of Zaron W. Burnett, Jr.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Blues for an Alabama Sky.” American Theatre, 17
July 1996.
Clease, Pearl. Mad at Miles. Atlanta: Cleage Group,
1990.
Giles, Freda Scott. “The Motion of Herstory: Three
Plays by Pearl Cleage.” African American Review
31, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 709–712.
Roberts, Tara. “Pearls of Wisdom.” Essence, December
1997.
Turner, Darwin T., ed. Black Drama in America: An
Anthology. Washington, D.C.: Howard University
Press, 1994.
Washington, Elsie, “Pearl Cleage.” Essence, September
1993.
Jeannine F. HunterCleaver, Eldridge (1935–1989)
A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Eldridge Cleaver
became, during the 1960s, a spokesperson for the
revolutionary Black Panther Party, founded by
Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, Cali-
fornia. As the minister of defense, Cleaver became
its most articulate spokesperson, in the way MAL-
COLM X did for the Nation of Islam. Cleaver, who,
like Malcolm X, had converted to Islam while in
prison, declared his interest in one of two things:
the total liberation of black people or total de-
struction for America, as did such writers of the
BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT as AMIRI BARAKA, HAKI
MADHUBUTI (Lee), and NIKKI GIOVANNI. Cleaver
was also the Black Panthers’ candidate for the of-
fice of president of the United States.
More important, however, the Black Panther’s
general Marxist platform called for full employ-
ment and decent housing for blacks, the end of op-
pression and police brutality endemic in the black
community, and the establishment of educational
and liberation centers. The Black Panthers estab-
lished breakfast programs, day care centers, and
medical care for the underclass. They published
the radical newspaper The Black Panther to pro-
mulgate their philosophy and ideology. Considered
armed revolutionaries, the Panthers lived under
the watchful eyes of the Oakland Police Depart-
ment and the FBI, which infiltrated the organiza-
tion because of its radical philosophy and militant
leaders. When an Oakland police officer was killed
during an FBI raid and ensuing gun battle, Cleaver,
like a fugitive slave running to freedom, fled the
United States; he remained exiled for seven years
in a variety of Third World countries.
Cleaver is best known for his neo–slave nar-
rative/autobiography Soul on Ice (1968), written
while he was in California’s Folsom Prison, sen-
tenced there in 1954 for possession of marijuana.
Coming as it did during the same year the Su-
preme Court handed down its history-changingCleaver, Eldridge 107