On October 8, 1968, Black Panther leader and Peace and Freedom Party Presidential candidate Eldridge Cleaver held a news conference in Oakland.  He reacted to the news that the Supreme Court of the United States had refused to intervene in Cleaver's battle to appear on the California ballot in the 1968 Presidential election. California Secretary of State Frank M. Jordan had ruled that since Cleaver would not be the Constitutionally-required 35 years of age by the time of the Presidential inauguration, he was not a legitimate candidate.