Professor, Historian, Author, Co-Founder of the Intersectional Black Panther Party History Project
Institute of Advanced Study
Robyn C. Spencer is a historian that focuses on Black social protest after World War II, urban and working-class radicalism, and gender. Her book The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland was published in 2016. She is co-founder of the Intersectional Black Panther Party History Project and has written widely on gender and Black Power. Her writings have appeared in the Journal of Women’s History and Souls as well as The Washington Post, Vibe Magazine, Colorlines, and Truthout. She has received awards for her work from the Mellon foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Association of Black Women Historians. She is currently in residence at the Institute of Advanced Study in the school of Social Science finishing her second book project on Black protest against the U.S. war in Vietnam. She is working on biographies of two radical women: Angela Davis and Patricia Robinson.
Prof. Spencer is an activist scholar who is committed to Black-Palestinian solidarity, campaigns to free political prisoners in the US and end mass incarceration and grassroots Black feminist activism.