[News] National Park Service Withdraws Funding From Black Panther Party Project, but History Cannot Be Erased

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42743-national-park-service-withdraws-funding-from-black-panther-party-project-but-history-cannot-be-erased 



  National Park Service Withdraws Funding From Black Panther Party
  Project, but History Cannot Be Erased

Robyn C. Spencer - Friday, December 01, 2017
------------------------------------------------------------------------

On October 27, 2017, news that the National Park Service (NPS) withdrew 
its pledge to fund the University of California at Berkley's proposal 
for the Black Panther Party Research, Interpretation and Memory Project 
(BPPRIMP) became public 
<http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/27/amid-uproar-national-park-service-yanks-98000-grant-for-black-panther-party-legacy-project/>.

This almost $100,000 grant 
<http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/P17AS00807-P17AC01672.pdf> was 
the brainchild of the local NPS in Richmond, which approached the 
University of California at Berkeley with the potential collaboration. 
Historian Ula Y. Taylor, a renowned expert in African American history, 
took a leading role in developing the proposal and identifying 
consultants with deep roots in exhibition, conservation and music 
education and with firsthand knowledge of the Black Panther Party (BPP) 
as members. The resulting grant is rooted in community education, the 
acknowledgement of historic sites, the collection of oral histories and 
the creation of a publicly available annotated bibliography to guide 
future research. It aims to enhance knowledge of the local and regional 
history of the Bay Area, promising to "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." It is conceived broadly in the humanistic 
tradition and aims to encourage critical thinking and civic engagement. 
In fractious times, it offers the possibility of bridging "generational, 
cultural and regional gaps in dialogue on race relations, economic 
inclusion and opportunity, and other critical imperatives that divide 
diverse populations."


      The fate of this grant reflects the ways in which history
      continues to be a battleground for the Trump administration.

Although the NPS has not made a public statement about its rationale for 
defunding the BPPRIMP, it is not difficult to connect the political dots 
between conservative outrage and the NPS's withdrawal of support. 
Criticism in conservative media outlets coupled with a letter written to 
President Trump by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) shaped the 
context for the NPS's withdrawal of funding support. The FOP's letter 
<https://fop.net/CmsDocument/Doc/NPS%20grant%20for%20BPP.pdf> has been 
uncritically quoted in the press, leaving its depiction of the BPP as a 
"violent and repugnant" organization that made little contribution to US 
society, to stand unchecked.

The BPP was one of the leading organizations of the Black freedom 
movement. Its advocacy of self-defense in the face of violence and 
police brutality; successful community survival programs providing free 
food, clothing, medical care and services to anyone who needed it; 
popular newspaper "The Black Panther"; and anti-imperialist ideology 
inspired thousands of people to join and helped define radical protest 
in the 1960s. From Germany 
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/27668453?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents> to 
India <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137295064_7> to 
Australia 
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/40027217?mag=black-panther-party&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents>, 
the Panther model has been adopted by oppressed people working toward 
political power and economic justice. Like many organizations at the 
time, the Panthers struggled with addressing sexism within their ranks, 
and creating an internal structure which maintained both discipline and 
democracy. Their anti-capitalist politics and mass base earned them the 
enmity of local police forces and the FBI, which launched COINTELPRO, an 
unprecedented campaign of political repression against the organization.


      The history of the Black Panther Party cannot be extricated from
      the story of the US past.

The Panthers' history includes confrontation with the police, and 
several members of the organization remain incarcerated. Because of 
their oppositional politics, the intense repression the organization 
faced, and the politicized nature of their court proceedings, these 
Panthers are considered political prisoners. Many are supported by 
organizations like Amnesty International, the Jericho Movement and 
international human rights activists like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and 
Nelson Mandela. Some Panther political prisoners like Geronimo Pratt 
<https://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/6/former_black_panther_leader_and_political> and 
Robert King were released due to wrongful conviction after spending 
decades in prison. Others, like Sekou Odinga, Albert Woodfox, Marshall 
Eddie Conway and Sekou Kambui, were freed after long legal battles in 
cases which brought to light informant testimonies, inadequate legal 
counsel, human rights abuses within prison, prolonged solitary 
confinement and punitive denial of parole. Veronza Bowers -- the former 
Panther spotlighted in the FOP letter due to his arrest for allegedly 
killing a park ranger in 1973 -- had his parole denied in 2005 by 
then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. In 2009, a judge ruled this 
denial evidence of bias by the US Parole Commission. After over 40 years 
in prison, Bowers remains behind bars 
<http://www.veronza.org/>, continuing the legal battle for his freedom. 
Political prisoners are an inextricable part of the Panther's history, 
and the history of political repression 
<https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94intelligence_activities_VI.pdf> of 
dissidents in the US is well documented. The FOP's attempt to collapse 
the BPPRIMP's broad vision into a referendum on the Bowers case is an 
attempt to stifle history.

The NPS's swift and unexplained reversal is particularly troubling, 
given the agency's recent public proclamations around inclusion. On the 
NPS's centennial in 2016, the agency was criticized for a history rooted 
in Indigenous removal and a close association with conservationists like 
Madison Grant, who were well-known white supremacists, white 
nationalists and eugenicists. The Interior Secretary acknowledged that 
<https://medium.com/@Interior/the-next-100-years-of-american-conservation-397c42b8f1f2> "with 
only a sliver of national parks and historic sites focused on women, 
minorities and underrepresented communities, there's more to be done." 
That same year, the NPS chose radical poet and activist Sonia Sanchez 
<http://soniasanchez.net/2016/08/national-park-service-welcomes-dr-sonia-sanchez-as-nps-centennial-poet-laureate/> as 
poet laureate to highlight the fact that "in addition to breathtaking 
landscapes, the national park system includes places of cultural 
heritage and the struggle for social justice and civil rights -- places 
of inspiration, dialogue, and healing." Likely this context, and the 
strength of the proposal, shaped the initial decision to fund the BPPRIMP.

This commitment collapsed in the face of political pressure from 
above. Much like debates about Confederate monuments 
and misinterpretations of the causes of the Civil War, the fate of this 
grant reflects the ways in which history continues to be a battleground 
for the Trump administration, especially on issues of race. President 
Trump's hostile policies toward immigrants, Muslims, the LGBT community 
and others have emboldened white supremacist protesters who have rallied 
in places like the University of California, the sponsoring institution 
for this grant. These policies rest on crafting a shrill narrative of 
disunity, peddling false equivalences and distorting history. The New 
York Times recently editorialized 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/opinion/kelly-racist-history-slavery-compromise.html> that 
the administration exploits "racist myths and deepening racial divisions 
for perceived political advantage." By recovering a history of radical 
resistance to racism, militarism and imperialism and rooting it in 
"places" (conservation efforts) and "voices" (oral histories) that would 
be accessible to the public, the BPPRIMP serves as another mechanism to 
challenge racist history lessons.

Despite the continued campaign of distortions and 
misrepresentations, the history of the BPP cannot be extricated from the 
story of the US past. The Black Panther Party's records have been 
archived at repositories all around the country; their history has been 
included in the National Museum of African American History, where more 
than 1 million visitors have been exposed 
<https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/all-power-people> to BPP-related 
artworks and artifacts in their collection; school teachers all across 
the country have included the Panthers in their curriculum 
<http://www.aaihs.org/blackpanthersyllabus/>; and professional 
historians have written over 100 prize-winning articles and books on 
different aspects of the organization's history.

There has been a resurgence of Panther history from the grassroots as 
Panther history has been critically analyzed for its ideological legacy, 
motivational moments and cautionary tales. Panther chants and quotes 
spill off the lips of a new generation of activists in the Movement for 
Black Lives; former members continue to provide the political memory of 
radical struggle with their writings and activism; and grassroots 
movements against mass incarceration are increasingly dovetailing with 
the movement to free political prisoners in the US. Increasingly, the 
Panthers are being critically engaged outside of the classroom in 
digital humanities projects, walking-tour apps and public history 
projects. They stream into living rooms in award-winning documentaries 
like Stanley Nelson's /Vanguard of the Revolution/ and Ava DuVernay's 
/13th/. Bibliophiles can even encounter them in popular young adult 
novels. Every school child who goes to school in the morning and gets a 
hot, free breakfast in a program originated by the BPP is swallowing a 
piece of Panther history. To allow the FOP and conservative outlets, an 
administration whose distortion of history is often front-page news, and 
a government agency unwilling to implement its own mandate for diversity 
to derail the BPPRIMP, would be a travesty.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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