ABSTRACT
In May 1967 Alabama's atttention was riveted by television footage of a group calling themselves the Black Panther Party for Self Defense as they boldly strode the corridors of the California State Capitol. Kathleen Cleaver is definitely movie star potential if she should elect to go that route. But those close to her are convinced she will never leave her husband’s side or the revolutionary movement to make a career in films. “Angela Davis—Black Revolutionary” read the red and blue headline over a closeup of Davis on the October 26, 1970, cover of Newsweek. Ennobled acts of conviction by Davis and Cleaver that had been indelibly inscribed in public consciousness were co-opted into ahistorical, erotic fantasies. The eventual cover showed Davis in a three-quarter posed facial close-up, looking thoughtful beneath a full Afro, with large hoop earrings, and wearing black leather, ever the iconic embodiment of Black female militancy.
