Cleaver spurns blacks for relgion By REGINALD MAJOR tures the urgency which I feel. I seem to hear the Lord say- "We are invrslved in spiritual ing to me, 'Against these evils, warfare between God and the thou shalt crusade.' " Devil,' declared Eldridge Cleav- Thus far the chief evils against er, explaining the missionary which the former Black Panther zeal behind his newly launched Minister of Information directs "Eldridge Cleaver Crusades." his famous rhetoric are com- 'Crusades, he says, cap- munism and black militancy. The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Thursday, August 4, 1977 News Phone: 764-0552 Carter's marijuana plan falls short of expectations PRESIDENT CARTER told us throughout the campaign he favored decriminalization of lossession of "small amounts of marijuana," and he promised to remedy the situation when elected. Tuesday he made an attempt to live up to that promise - and came up disappoint- ingly short., What -Carter did was ask Congress to eliminate all federal criminal penalties for possession of one ounce or less of pot, and to substitute civil fines instead of those penalties. Persons possessing upwards of one ounce of marijuana would still be liable to federal criminal penalties. At first glance, it would seem the President has made a bold move for the right of the individual, but on closer inspection, one finds that Carter's proposal is already standard practices for federal drug agencies. Even Peter Bensinger, administrator of the Drug En- forcement Administration admitted Carter's plan "is pres- idential recognition of what is really the present fed- eral prosecutorial practice. There's not a federal prose- cutor in the United States today who would prosecute a case of possessing an ounce or less of marijuana." So it would seem that in a practical sense, whether Congress heeds Carter's recommendation or not, the fed- eral government will not prosecute persons for posses- sion of one ounce or less of pot, and those who possess more than one ounce will still be subject to federal im- prisonment for simply enjoying a drug that has never been proven to do any significant physical damage. Nearly 50 million Americans have tried marijuana, and 11 million consider themselves regular users. It is time this country wakes up to those statistics and legal- izes, not decriminalizes, the sale and use of pot. And among the chief support- ers of the incorporated crusade are some of the leading lumin- aries of the predominantly white, new right evangelism. LOOKING LIK&. a preacher and sounding like a politician, Cleaver dishes out a hearty blend of old-time religion and fundamental, conservative poll- tics. And his mission - apart from keeping him out of jail -. appears to be bridging the wide gap between the black and white evangelist movements - a feat that, if accomplished, could cement a powerful new conservative political coalition. The anti-communist nature of Cleaver's new crusade has re- newed charges among his crit- ics that his actions and state- ments since his return from exile in November 1975 are basi- cally "opportunistic," clever stragegems designed to win him public approval in his bid for freedom. Cleaver still faces charges of assault and attempted murder stemming from an April, 1968 shootout with Oakland police. is trial is expected to begin in September. The former radical - who may soon become the Reverend Eldridge - has consistently de-, nied all charges of collabora- tion. "I have not made a ileal with anyone except Christ," Cleaver declared before an all- black congregation of San Fran- cisco's Providence Baptist Church in mid-June. BUT THOUGH Cleaver dates his conversion to Christianity .to a vision he experienced while still, in exile "in Paris (when the face of Christ replaced those of Marx, Mao, and Castro on the moon), his initial appeal following his return was to American Jews. His defense committee was headed by Bayard Rustin, chair- man of BASIC (Black Ameri- cans for a Secure Israel Com- mittee).. And one of Cleaver's first published articles was an attack on the United Nations for passing a resolution equat- ing Zionism with racism. When he declared that Cas- tro's Cuba displayed a form of racism more insidious than South Africa's, critics became convinced that Cleaver's state- ments were bought and paid for. f But apart from small contri- butions to the defense commit- tee, by March 1976, still in the Oakland jail, Cleaver had yet to find a constituency with enough resources and power to support his legal battles. HE FOUND IT in Arthur te- Moss, a Philadelphia millionaire who is chairman of the board of the National Liberty Corpor- ation and a top financial con- tributor to the ultras-conservative Camnus Crusade for Christ and the Christian Freedom Founda- tion. feMoss visited Cleaver in jail ftlewing contacts that indica- ted the former Panther might be ready to become a born-again Christian. DeMoss provided $1o0,000 for Cleaver's bail and sIfficient living expenses to rmaintain a $100,000 home in the plush Los Altos hills south of San Francisco. Along with Cleaver and his wife Kathleen, DeMoss is an officer in the Eldridge Cleaver Crusades Corporation. Since then, Cleaver has gone on the religious lecture circuit, appearing at some 30 colleges, more than 20 churches and vir- tually every major religious TV talkshow. " HE AND KATHLEEN were baptized in October, 1976 and placed their tworchildren in a tLos Angeles Christian school. "I don't want my children cor- rupted by bearded teachers who don't agree with me," said Cleaver. Cleaver's first appearances were limited to white evangeli- cal groups who responded en- thusiastically to his "testimony" about how an ex-communist and black militant had become one with Christ - even though there is no evidence Cleaver ever was a communist. When skeptics charged he was avoiding black audiences, Cleav- er began appearing at all-black churches such as the Providence Baptist Church, whose pastor, Calvin Jones, is a locally well- known conservative and a spon- sor of the Eldridge Cleaver Cru- sades. His reception there, while not overly enthusiastic, was ap- proving. During his testimony, Cleaver criticised San Francisco Sheriff Richard Hongisto and state As, semblyman Willie Brown for campaigning on behalf of gay civil rights in Florida. WITH A BITTERNESS that seemed to contradict his claim to love everyone, including his enemies, he dismissed Califor- nia's leading black politicians -- including Willie Brown, Lt. Gov. Mervyn Dymally and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley-- >ecause "they did not lift a finger to help me." - "I appeared before Lionel Wil- son, a black judge, and he rais- ed my bail from $50,000 to $100,- see," Cleaver complained. Judge Wilson, ironically, has since be- come Mayor of Oakland, with the full support of the Black Panther Party. Throughout his testimony, Cleaver subtly hinted that white political control is closer to the proper order of things. Says one long-time black activ- ist in Oakland who has followed Cleaver's byzantine career from the beginning, "Eldridge's relig- ious message seems to be one of convincing blacks to chain themselves to the rock of ages after they steal away to Jesus." IN FACT, Cleaver's brand of Christian activism in closely re- lated to the. kind of evangelism that in the pasthas been char- acterized" as decidedly anti- black. Some of his key support- ers among the leading white evangelist powers have carried the anti-communist zeal to un- critical support for the white minority governments of Rho- desia and South Africa. While Cleaver has avoided em- bracing such a position public- ly, he privately takes a hard, critical line toward the black African states involved in south- ern Africa's racial wars. In an interview, he decried as "racist" and support for "those niggers trying to push our brothers into the sea"-in southern Africa. The future of the Eldridge Cleaver Crusades is now being mapped out from a Stanford, Calif., office. In the meantime, the organization has already be- gun publishing a "Crusader" newsletter appealing to readers to "send us a generous contribu- tion towards the founding of this ministry." Resin.ld Major, author of one of the earliest books on the Slack Panther Party, and a book ni the Angela Davis trial, is a ne'ber of the foundation- fissdied Pacific News urban task force. Editorials and cartoons that appear on the righst side of the Editorial Poe are the opinion of the author or artist, and not necessarily the opinion of the paper. yI'4 I .rTi Fo TO R/I4Fp-45 GE55r tW L5- ~UP \ i -~~C5 Is I v ,s YWT .6 HESS.~~ 5W IF Vt-I TD BE A - TNC&) 1NFIVtJTS I Iu MAMMA? I / APfEK 6 fM t1HG ITS COC~C44 Ir ru