VANCOUVER, British Columbia—Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther “revolutionary” turned evangelical Christian, had a pie pushed into his face on May 1, while speaking to an audience attending a christian crusade in the Orpheum Theatre.
As the white, gooey cream streamed down his face, Cleaver met the onslaught and turned his newly-found Christian cheek, saying: “I seem to have changed color.”
Cleaver must have read the press release issued by the Anarchist Party of Canada (Groucho-Marxist) who said they chose an Oreo Cream pie to throw at him because “Oreo Cookies are black on the outside and white on the inside, just like Eldridge and his participation in the white man’s pseudo-religious shell game.”
The two members of the Canadian anarchist group who took credit for throwing the pie fled the auditorium after the incident, but were nabbed by the Jesus freaks who punched them several times and held them for the police. Cleaver, however, declined to press charges and the two men were not held.
Saying to the audience, after a short intermission to wash his face, “I haven’t met one single person I don’t love, including the pie-man. I will remember him every day in my prayers,” Cleaver continued his speech to the Youth for Christ audience.
While most of Eldridge’s onetime comrades in the Black Liberation Army have been murdered by the racist U.S. government or are currently rotting in prisons, Cleaver remains free to travel out of the country with the likes of Nixon Watergater Charles Colson, shooting his mouth off for pay about the glories of American “democracy,” although he is still facing attempted murder charges arising out of a 1968 police attack on the Black Panthers in California.
It is not difficult to guess why Cleaver, who only recently returned to the U.S. from exile, has suddenly found “God.” Wearing an “I Found It!” button as he campaigns for Christ, what Cleaver has obviously found is a deal to influence the white authorities at his forthcoming trial.
The “I Found It!” campaign (FE March 1977) is endorsed by a wide-range of reactionaries such as conservative columnist William F. Buckley, who has admitted to CIA affiliations in the past. As the Groucho Marxists accused him, Cleaver is obviously only being used (and using) the CIA-front group which has access to a multi-million dollar budget for its international campaign.
Calling Cleaver a “turncoat fink,” and a front man for the pseudo-religious group, the Anarchist Party of Canada has promised him more pie if he turns the other cheek. Why wait for Jesus to give it to you?