I had to dock a star for how abysmally gender and sexuality are treated in this. This is true of tons of older fiction, but it's worse than average here for anything with a radical bent. Black women exist only as sexual conquest, afterthought, or as non existent. They get one sentence in the entire book about their place in the struggle, due to having access to some spaces Black men don't, but he never actually bothers to include them in organizing. He even converts a lesbian sex worker to infatuated heterosexual devotion to him with his amazing sexual prowess. A fantasy based on a pretty gnarly system of misogyny in which lesbians are seen as just not meeting the right man yet. In many ways, the Superman characterization of the protagonist works very well in order to critique the system at large, but in regards to Black women it does the opposite.

All of that said, this is a fantastic story otherwise. I'm white but could see clearly how deftly the author explored intercommunity dynamics and disagreements. Anyone marginalized, especially if you've ever been an organizer, will see the complexity of Black struggle and community dialogues portrayed here. It's also just a fun story about folks halting the trauma enacted on one another and instead banding together to strike back against white supremacy. It's really nice to see a narrative this radical (for Black straight men at least) in terms of refusing to rely on the oppressor for salvation while also engaging with the myriad of ways that oppressed people do- often lacking any other options without the kind of organization that occurs in this story.

Other reviewers have said more better, so I'll end my review here. I'm glad to have finally read this as it's been on my list forever.