LAUSR

males’ (42). Yet, Spencer’s study clearly shows that dominant masculine ideals did not preclude women’s participation or criticism. Whereas early studies of the Panthers often condemned the group for unchecked sexism, Spencer’s interviews with rank-and-file members revealed that women began joining the Party within months of its inception, and they ‘turned theoretical loopholes into open doors’ (46). Women also protested their mistreatment. For instance, when Newton asked members to ‘comment on the party’s unspoken policy of Panther women dating solely within the organization’ (187), one female member wrote, ‘Within the past couple of months a comrade slopped into bed with me and began to disrobe me and have sex, to which I firmly objected and he did finally give up’ (188). Another testified, ‘It bothers me that there are a few brothers who seem unable to carry on a conversation with me once I explain that I am not interested in going to bed with them’ (188–89). Oakland Panthers powerfully critiqued and re-shaped gendered norms and expectations within the organization, and Spencer shows that external forces impacting the group were also inflected by gender. ‘Adher[ing] to gendered assumptions about leadership’ (94), FBI agents constantly targeted male members. As Panther leader Ericka Huggins told Spencer, this meant that ‘behind the scenes women ran almost every program [and] were involved in every level of the party’ (94). Amongst the most powerful evidence that she mined within the voluminous FBI files on the Panthers, Spencer confirms that the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program used homophobia and sexism in their attempts to undermine the Panthers. After Newton penned an open letter in 1970 in support of the women and gay liberation movement, FBI agents in San Francisco drafted fake letters from Panther ‘members’ to send to Party leaders. One read, ‘The Panther sisters have to fight to keep the brothers from white chicks. Now what do you want us to do, watch them take up with queers’ (99). The Revolution Has Come is no romanticized account. ‘The fact remains’, Spencer concludes, ‘that the Panthers’ story starts with women demanding equality, respect, and dignity in the party and ends years later with most of the demands unmet’ (203). Critically sympathetic and offering powerful new ways to interpret the BPP, Spencer’s book stands poised to shape a new generation of research into the gendered Black Power era.