Born Kathleen Neal 5/13/45 in Memphis, Texas.

Her father was in the foreign service, growing up she lived in India, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Philippines.

She attended a Quaker boarding school.

She left college at Barnard to be a secretary at SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee).

She married Eldridge Cleaver, joined the BPP and was the communications secretary and the first woman to be in a leadership/decision making role. She was also the spokesperson and press secretary.

She ran for California State Assembly as a Peace and Freedom party candidate in 1968.

She was in exile with Eldridge in Algeria in 1969.

She gave birth to her son, Maceo in Algeria, and her daughter Joju in North Korea.

After being expelled from the BPP she co-founded the Revolutionary People’s Communication Network.

She divorced Eldridge in 1987 and went to Yale for undergraduate and law school and currently holds a position at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia.