National Park Service will not grant $98,000 to UC Berkeley for Black Panther project

National Park Service will not grant $98,000 to UC Berkeley for Black Panther project

By Lynda Carson - October 31, 2017

Reportedly in recent days, the National Park Service (NPS) decided to back away from it’s intent to award around $100,000 to UC Berkeley for the Black Panther Party Research, Interpretation & Memory Project.

The project was attacked by conservatives, right-wing extremists, and members of the National Fraternal Order of Police.

In a letter from Chuck Canterbury, National President, of the National Fraternal Order of Police, to the embattled President Donald Trump, Canterbury is expressing outrage that the National Park Service has awarded a $98,000 grant to UC Berkeley, for the project.

Apparently, there was enough pressure placed on the National Park Service (NPS), that they backed away from giving a federal grant to UC Berkeley, for the Black Panther Party Research, Interpretation & Memory Project.

According to an article in the Oakland Post about the Black Panther Party Research, Interpretation & Memory Project, Sue Taylor reported, “Dr. Ula Y. Taylor, incoming chair of African American Studies at UC Berkeley, will lead the effort, joined by consultants who know Panther history. J. Tarika Lewis, the first woman to join the Party in Oakland, and Paul Lee, consultant on Spike Lee‘s film “Malcolm X” and “Eyes on the Prize II,” will work with Taylor.”

Before the NPS was pressured to back away from giving a grant for the project, according to an overview of the project: “This cooperative research project between the National Park Service (NPS) and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) on the Black Panther Party (BPP) is anchored in historical methods, visual culture, and the preservation of sites and voices. The project will discover new links between the historical events concerning race that occurred in Richmond during World War II and the subsequent emergence of the BPP in the San Francisco Bay Area two decades later through research, oral history and interpretation. Committed to truthfully honoring the legacy of BPP activists and the San Francisco Bay Area communities they served, the project seeks to document the lives of activists and elders and the landscapes that shaped the movement. Producing an annotative bibliography that includes scholarly texts, newspaper, and magazine articles will be useful for future scholars of the movement. Equally significant, the project will document how the BPP impacted the visual arts, music, dance, and styles of the 1960s, 70s and 80s will underscore the vastness of its impact on American culture. Bay Area sites that shaped the BPP will be identified in an effort to memorialize a history that brought meaning to lives far beyond the San Francisco Bay Area.”

According to Wikipedia, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, founded the revolutionary Black Panther Party (BPP), originally known as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, in 1966. Involved in many activities while they were active, the BPP had food programs, and demanded safe affordable housing, for the communities they were involved in.

It was revealed years ago that disgraced ex-President Richard Nixon a.k.a. Tricky Dick, had two enemies lists: Nixon’s original enemies list included Huey P. Newton, of the Black Panther Party. Additional people on Nixon’s original enemies list included former Congressman and Mayor of Oakland, Ron Dellums, Congressman John Conyers, Congressman Charles Rangel, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, comedian Dick Gregory, actors Bill Cosby, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, Barbara Streisand, Tony Randall, Carol Channing, football/actor Joe Namath, and many other notable persons. During the time the original enemies list was made, Nixon’s staff were so dumb they misspelled Huey Newton’s name, who was listed as #32 on the original enemies list. Nixon’s second enemies list was also revealed at a later date.

Around 48 years ago, Bobby Seale, a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was bound and gagged in the courtroom of Judge Julius Hoffman, no relation to Yippie, Abbie Hoffman, during the Chicago 8 conspiracy trial.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com

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