When Eldridge Cleaver arrived in Algiers in the summer of 1969, it was the start of the Pan-African Festival. Thousands of activists, writers, and freedom fighters from dozens of African countries descended on Algiers in the largest gathering of artists from the African diaspora in the world. The Black Panther Party, with Cleaver as its leader, was given a storefront on Rue Didouche Mourad, where it displayed colorful artwork by Emory Douglas. The storefront, pictured here, became a central focal point of the festival.
Algeria had only been free of colonial rule for seven years when Cleaver arrived. The French had colonized the African nation in 1832 and had ruled for over 130 years. During occupation, they had demolished the old central city and redesigned the streets in Parisian style. During the festival, Africans reclaimed these streets in parades, military marches, and elaborate demonstrations on horseback. Drums could be heard echoing off of the cavernous boulevards day and night. It was an unprecedented celebration of black global unity.
Just adjacent to downtown was the Casbah, an ancient labyrinth of walkways and dwellings, where the Algerians had fought and won the insurgency against the French during the Algerian War of Independence. The film The Battle of Algiers had been filmed here, and it was considered canonical viewing for Cleaver and The Black Panthers.
Following decolonization, President Houari Boumediene nationalized the country’s oil and gas industry and used the money to fund liberation armies across the globe. Cleaver believed that Algeria represented the best hope for the Panthers to receive international recognition, funding, and training to create an American revolt. He predicted that there would be a coup of the American government by 1972.
Cleaver loved to walk long distances throughout his life, and his favorite place to walk in Algiers was the Casbah. The site of mosques and Ottoman-style palaces, as well as endless winding pathways leading sharply from the sea up into the hillside, Cleaver found the Casbah to be an endlessly fascinating location.
During the festival, the Algerian government put up Cleaver and his wife Kathleen at the Hotel Aletti, Algeria’s premier luxury hotel. It was owned by the government, and it was used to house revolutionary groups. Seven stories high with large columns and a circular driveway, it was decorated inside with hand-carved furniture and velvet drapes. Massive chandeliers hung from the ceiling, while the rooms were furnished with gold satin chairs and French Provincial furniture. Large windows looked out onto the sea. The contemporary picture of the Aletti here show it undergoing a remodel.
Many other black American artists and political figures attended the festival, including Stokley Carmichael, Archie Shepp, playwright Ed Bullins, and Nina Simone. They stayed at the famous Hotel St. George, a palatial compound build on the site of an Ottoman palace. It was here where Carmichael and Cleaver had their final falling out. Carmichael’s black nationalist approach was squarely at odds with Cleaver’s Marxism, and they parted ways as activists.
Now called the Hotel El-Djazair, the Hotel St. George was one of the most famous landmarks in Algiers. Persian rugs covered the floor of the lobby, while the walls were ornamented with Byzantine mosaics. Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill had used the hotel as a base during World War II, and literary celebrities like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had frequented the former palace in the post-war years.
In his first year in Algiers, Cleaver built an international coalition of support for the Black Panther Party. He met with leaders of North Korea, Vietnam, and China, and he created meaningful connections with third world liberation movements. He also became increasingly paranoid and erratic, as the FBI targeted him and Huey Newton as part of an aggressive misinformation campaign.
In the summer of 1970, Algeria’s Revolutionary Council granted the Panthers status as a liberation movement and gave them an embassy for their operations (pictured here). A number of Panthers had fled the United States to join Cleaver by this point, and together they formed the International Section of the Black Panther Party. They were given $500 per month, a telex, a mailbox, and identification cards. Cleaver started to think of himself as the black Che Guevara.
In 1972, Cleaver’s relationship with the Algerian government became strained after a number of black American activists hijacked planes and flew them to Algeria with hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom money. The Algerian government seized cash, which prompted Cleaver to demand publicly it be handed over to him. Secret police agents started following him everywhere he went, and on New Year’s Day 1973, he fled the country.
The Bibliothèque nationale d’Algérie in Algiers, where Justin Gifford researched the life of Eldridge Cleaver.
Ahmad Maceo Cleaver (son of Eldridge Cleaver) and Justin Gifford standing in front of the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco. Dr. Gifford interviewed him over the course of a week in the spring of 2018. He passed away from heart complications a few months later. Revolution or Death is dedicated to his memory.