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TitleDear Herb Caen:
Author
PublisherFree City Collective
PlaceSan Francisco
Year
Date 14/15/1968
Date 2n.d., ca.
Publication
Volume
Issue
Page(s)
MediumBroadside
DimensionLegal
Extent
Imprint
Collation
CatalogFC-NEWS-005
CollectionSOLA-o
Cit. No.
Keywords
Trans. Title
Section
Group
Sub-Group
Series
Folder
FC-NEWS-005
click image to enlarge
Notes
Re: Dating. Herb Caen mentioned the Oakland shootout in his column on April 15, 1968. "When young Bobby Hutton and Eldridge Cleaver were trapped by the cops in that Oakland house, the experienced Cleaver told the kid: 'Take off all your clothes before we walk outside — that way they can't claim you were trying to pull a gun and shoot you." Cleaver thereupon stripped but Hutton was too shy: he kept his shorts on. And was shot dead. The naked Cleaver was wounded."
Abstract
This Free News sheet layers nude figuration and political mockery into a single charged image. Beneath the spectral purple and black composition appears Eldridge Cleaver’s letter to Herb Caen on the Oakland shootout, turning the naked body into an instrument of irony directed against police power, sexual panic, and public hypocrisy. The piece works less as straightforward reportage than as a visual provocation, fusing underground print aesthetics with the volatile politics of the street.
Full Text
free news
Dear Herb Caen:

Briefly on my nude exit. Re: The Oakland shootout mentioned in your column. It was based on long and continuous observation of Pigs while in prison. All Pigs are homosexuals, latent if not active. When confronted with a naked male body totally by surprise, the homosexual's basic impulse is to carress [sic] it. Instead of shooting me, the Oakland Pigs kicked and stomped my naked body. In the circumstances, a kick or a stomp may be interpreted as a carress [sic] when contrasted with shooting. There were about 50 frenzied Pigs around me with guns in their hands. Had just one of them been "straight," I'd be one dead black cat.

Truly,
-Eldridge Cleaver
Minister of Information
Black Panther Party

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