<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42743-national-park-service-withdraws-funding-from-black-panther-party-project-but-history-cannot-be-erased">http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42743-national-park-service-withdraws-funding-from-black-panther-party-project-but-history-cannot-be-erased</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">National Park Service Withdraws Funding
From Black Panther Party Project, but History Cannot Be Erased</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Robyn C. Spencer - <span
class="itemDateCreated">Friday, December 01, 2017</span></div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div id="moz-reader-content" class="line-height4" dir="ltr"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div class="itemFullText">
<p>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) <a
href="http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/27/amid-uproar-national-park-service-yanks-98000-grant-for-black-panther-party-legacy-project/"
target="_blank">became public</a>.</p>
<p>This almost <a
href="http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/P17AS00807-P17AC01672.pdf"
target="_blank">$100,000 grant</a> 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."</p>
<p>
</p>
<h3>The fate of this grant reflects the ways in which
history continues to be a battleground for the Trump
administration.</h3>
<p>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 <a
href="https://fop.net/CmsDocument/Doc/NPS%20grant%20for%20BPP.pdf"
target="_blank">FOP's letter</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27668453?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents"
target="_blank">Germany</a> to <a
href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137295064_7"
target="_blank">India</a> to <a
href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40027217?mag=black-panther-party&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents"
target="_blank">Australia</a>, 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.</p>
<p>
</p>
<h3>The history of the Black Panther Party cannot be
extricated from the story of the US past.</h3>
<p>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 <a
href="https://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/6/former_black_panther_leader_and_political"
target="_blank">Geronimo Pratt</a> 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 <a
href="http://www.veronza.org/" target="_blank">remains
behind bars</a>, continuing the legal battle for his
freedom. Political prisoners are an inextricable part of
the Panther's history, and the <a
href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94intelligence_activities_VI.pdf"
target="_blank">history of political repression</a> 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. </p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://medium.com/@Interior/the-next-100-years-of-american-conservation-397c42b8f1f2"
target="_blank">acknowledged that</a> "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 <a
href="http://soniasanchez.net/2016/08/national-park-service-welcomes-dr-sonia-sanchez-as-nps-centennial-poet-laureate/"
target="_blank">chose radical poet and activist Sonia
Sanchez</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/opinion/kelly-racist-history-slavery-compromise.html"
target="_blank">recently editorialized</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/all-power-people"
target="_blank">have been exposed</a> to BPP-related
artworks and artifacts in their collection; school
teachers all across the country have included the
Panthers <a
href="http://www.aaihs.org/blackpanthersyllabus/"
target="_blank">in their curriculum</a>; and
professional historians have written over 100
prize-winning articles and books on different aspects of
the organization's history.</p>
<p>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 <em>Vanguard of the Revolution</em> and Ava
DuVernay's <em>13th</em>. 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.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>