The Face on the T-shirt
History Study Center
Writing in the Winter 1997–8 edition of the World Policy Journal, Gordon H. McCormick calls Che Guevara "one of those rare individuals who is able to live up to his ideals."

Is it this integrity that has made Che Guevara the face of revolutionary freedom struggles?

Does a cat's color really matter?
SIRS Decades

Participants in several of the 20th century's great freedom struggles -- including independence movements in Africa and Ireland -- have split over the degree to which their struggle should involve principles beyond the right to self-determination.

In particular, participants have argued -- and sometimes fought -- over whether they should be campaigning not only for freedom from a more powerful entity but also for greater equality and justice within their own ranks.

Primary source documents in SIRS Decades illustrate how this struggle played itself out close to home -- in the American civil rights movement.

The August 16, 1969, edition of The Black Panther newspaper contained a startling letter. Written in strong, often mocking language and peppered with obscenities, it was a stark condemnation of the Black Panthers' outgoing prime minister, Stokely Carmichael.

The writer was Eldridge Cleaver (pictured). Cleaver had met the Black Panthers' co-founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1967. They quickly put him to work as the Panthers' minister of information, where his charisma and rhetorical skills helped spread the Panthers' demands for "land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace."

Cleaver's beef with Carmichael came over Carmichael's desire to limit Black Panther membership exclusively to blacks. Such a restriction, Cleaver believed, undermined the Panthers' commitment to the principle of universal justice. "You were unable to distinguish your friends from your enemies," Cleaver wrote to Carmichael, "because all you could see was the color of the cat's skin."

Elsewhere in the letter, having accused Carmichael of promoting "an undying love for black people that denie[d] the humanity of other[s]," Cleaver called for a colorblind love fuelled by "the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism."

Activity: Read the full text of Eldridge Cleaver's letter to Stokely Carmichael. Identify four criticisms Cleaver makes of Carmichael's tenure as prime minister of the Black Panthers.

With reference to these criticisms, explain what made their two approaches so different. Who was right? Defend your answer.