My character Cleaver in Boudica and The Butcher is named after Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver.
In the draft novel, Cleaver is the leader of the rebel army in besieged Pilgerruh (today called Cleveland, OH). My character’s backstory is that he started as a criminal and gang member before engaging in the profitable political activism racket. The urban rebellion thrust him into military leadership because of his violent tendencies.
As I was drafting a teaser short story about the rebel leader in Pilgerruh compelling an assassin trapped in the city to accept a contract to assassinate The Butcher (Union General Gideon Sheridan), my subconscious offered Cleaver as the name of the rebel leader. At first I thought it was cool in a choppy-choppy way, then I thought, ‘Oh…Eldridge. My synapses be firing.’
Funny that my subconscious picked the correct name instead of going for Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael, or Marion Berry; none of those would have been as right. I have no idea what my character’s ethnicity is as I was simply thinking urban militant so my mind went to the 60s.
Jaycee Woods 
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