Watch FilmoFlix. In March 1997, social activist, former Black Panther, and author, Eldridge Cleaver sat down with Henry Louis Gates Jr. for a discussion of his life as a civil rights activist. It would be the last major interview Cleaver gave before his death in May 1998. This film draws on the 1997 interview, archival footage, and commentary from Cleaver's former wife Kathleen, as well as audio tapes of a 1975 interview that Gates did with Cleaver in Paris.