Cleaver attended Murray State College in Oklahoma before transferring to Prairie View A&M University, eventually completing his degree in 1972.

Civil Rights Leader and Local Politician

Cleaver's activist streak grew during the 1960s. He attended Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington. ''We thought of ourselves as radicals, as the gadflies then, not politicians,'' said Cleaver when reminiscing nearly three decades later.

Cleaver arrived in Kansas City, Mo., in 1968, at the request of civil-rights leader Rev. Ralph Abernathy to found the city's chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He quickly made his mark as a civil-rights leader. In 1972, he quit a directorship at the YMCA because of signs of "institutionalized racism." "I consider myself a militant, a revolutionary and a radical, but I think my revolutionary platform is built on God," he said in a 1972 interview.

That same year, Cleaver became known for seeking to establish a poor people's "tent city" in a municipal park near an upscale part of the city. The city quashed the effort.

After Cleaver earned his degree in divinity, he became a minister at St. James United Methodist Church with an inaugural flock of 47. Decades later, membership would swell to 2,800.

After an unsuccessful 1975 bid, Cleaver was elected to his first of three terms on the Kansas City Council in 1979. In 1991, he became the city's first black mayor by campaigning to the entire city and not just its African-American electorate. He served as mayor for two terms through 1999, while continuing to preach.

After leaving City Hall, Cleaver hosted a radio-talk show.

U.S. House Career

When Rep. Karen McCarthy (D-Mo.) decided not to run for reelection in 2004, the party turned to Cleaver to avoid a contentious primary race. He announced his bid from his church pulpit.

Cleaver won the nomination, but not before facing a stiff challenge from electoral novice and Washington insider Jamie Metzl. Metzl outraised Cleaver and attacked the former mayor for a state-backed loan and back taxes owed on a suburban car wash. Cleaver's general election opponent, businesswoman Jeanne Patterson (R), spent over $3 million of her own money on the race and also attacked Cleaver on ethics. Still, Cleaver defeated Patterson, 55 to 42 percent.

In the next three November elections, Cleaver faced Jacob Turk (R), a Marine veteran and former business-owner. Turk came closest to unseating Cleaver during the 2010 Republican wave, losing to the Democrat by only 9 percentage points, a close margin for in what is seen as a safe Democratic seat.

In 2008, Cleaver announced he would take a lesser role at his church, handing over the senior pastor position to his son.

Cleaver was one of a number of lawmakers who voted in March 2010 for health-care reform and received violent threats. Prior to the vote, Cleaver was met on the steps of Capitol Hill by protestors who shouted obscenities and spat in his face.

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