Listen here: https://isarnpodcast.podbean.com/e/black-activism-and-internationalism-in-the-united-states/
(Recorded March 2020)
Guest: Robyn C. Spencer
This is the first installment of a two-part conversation with Robyn Spencer, author of The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (2016) and Angela Davis: Radical Icon (2023). This episode focuses on Spencer’s work on the history of Black organizing in the United States, looking particularly at the Black Panther Party and the anti-imperialist writer and activist Patricia Murphy Robinson.
Robyn C. Spencer is a historian who focuses on Black social protest after World War II, urban and working-class radicalism, and gender. Since she began studying social movements as an undergraduate history major at SUNY Binghamton, Professor Spencer’s inspiration has come from the examples of those who made often incalculable sacrifice to fight injustice, racism, and sexism. Her MA essay, “Contested Terrain: The Mississippi Flood of 1927 and the Struggle to Control Black Labor,” explored the impact of the Mississippi Flood of 1927 on almost 300,000 displaced African Americans; this research was later published in the Journal of Negro History (1994) and featured in the documentary When Weather Changed History (2008). Her book The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (Duke University Press, 2016) was the culmination of years of research on gender and the organizational evolution of the Black Panther Party in Oakland; it was a finalist for the Benjamin Hooks Institute National Book Award and received Honorable Mention for the Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize sponsored by the Association of Black Women’s Historians. She has been awarded a Mellon fellowship at Yale University, a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society, and an ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars at the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science to support her ongoing research. Her book Angela Davis: Radical Icon was published by Westview Press in 2023, and she is at work on another book project, To Build the World Anew: Black Liberation Politics and the Movement Against the Vietnam War, which explores how and why the anti-imperialist struggle for Vietnamese independence became a rallying point for U.S.-based Black activists who were part of the freedom movement of the 1950s–1970s. Professor Spencer is a committed activist and participates in many community education initiatives aimed at bringing the history of the Black Power movement to community based spaces. In 2016 she served as one of the co-editors of the Radical Teacher special issue on “Teaching Black Lives Matter.” She has contributed essays connecting history to current events to The Washington Post, Black Youth Project Blog, Vibe Magazine, Colorlines, and the African American Intellectual History Society. She is an associate professor of history at Lehman College-CUNY and of history, American studies, and women and gender studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.
EPISODE NOTES:
Clip from “The Death of Michael Stewart” (2020), produced by Andrew Tkach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wekEsNqaUbw
Clip from “Amadou Diallo demonstration – December 1999”
Powerful Protest Against Police Brutality in NYC (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOL5SVrmQiU
Clip from “Whose Streets? Our Streets” (2017), produced by the Bronx Documentary Center
http://www.whosestreets.photo/police.html
Clip from “Black Lives Matter protesters rally against police shooting of Stephon Clark” (2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZPwAjgiuR0
Clip from “Say her name”: Protesters chant Breonna Taylor’s name in downtown Louisville” (2020)
Clip from “West Oakland Murder Site of Black Panther Huey P. Newton” (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB3pJ1LGcSA
Clip from “Bobby Seale: The 10 Point Program of The Black Panther Party” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-61QPCj0hA
Clip from an interview with Lynn French, Executive Director of Hope and Home, on her work in the Black Panther Party in Chicago and Oakland (interviewed by Salamishah Tillet) (2016) https://www.c-span.org/video/?403823-1/women-black-panther-party
Clip from George Mason Murray Press Conference (1968) https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/187251
Clip from “Historical footage and interviews with Black Panthers” (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHWGAEF5GGA
Clip from Huey P. Newton’ Speech at the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention (1970)
Music:
Intro music: South Pause, “Blaze Out” (via Epidemic Sound)
Clark Kent, “Crowander”
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/crowander/from-the-bass-funkjazzrock/clark-kent
Monplaisir, “10 bucks guitar and dental floss strings #2”
Checkie Brown, “Emphatic Flamingoes” https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Checkie_Brown_1005/quantum-field-anomaly/emphatic-flamingos-cb-101/
Outro Music: Pearce Roswell, “Work Undone” (via Epidemic Sound)
Links for Further Information:
Robyn C. Spencer Website https://robyncspencer.com/
Robyn C. Spencer, The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland
https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-revolution-has-come
Robyn C. Spencer on The Revolution Has Come https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jINUpUGgKN4
An Interview with Former Black Panther Lynn French https://www.aaihs.org/an-interview-with-former-black-panther-lynn-french/
Intersectional Black Panther Party History Project https://iphistoryproject.org/
Lessons on Liberated Learning: Oakland Community School | Presented by Black Teacher Project (2020)
Ericka Huggins, “The Liberation Schools, the Children’s House, the Intercommunal Youth Institute and the Oakland Community School” https://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/ericka-huggins-the-liberation-schools-the-children%E2%80%99s-house-the-intercommunal-youth-institute-and-the-oakland-community-school/
Intersectional Black Panther Party History Project, Joan Gray (former BPP Illinois Chapter member), “Love Liberation: 50 Years of the Black Panther Party” (Excerpts) https://vimeo.com/205990907
Emily K. Hobson, Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left (2016)
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520279063/lavender-and-red
Patricia Murphy Robinson Resources (@PATarchives) https://linktr.ee/PATarchives
Patricia Murphy Robinson: A Black Radical Reading List
Celebrating the Life of Patricia Robinson: A Teach-In (2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYZf7N6USEk
Patricia Murphy Robinson A Revolutionary Black Molecule https://pmrbio.wordpress.com/
Lessons from the Damned: Class Struggle in the Black Community (1973), written by a collaborative including Patricia Murphy Robinson