University Of California Berkeley Receives Federal Funding For Black Panther Party Project

The National Park Service has awarded the University of California, Berkeley, close to $98,000 for a project dedicated to the legacy of the Black Panther Party.

The program, which is titled the "Black Panther Party Research, Interpretation & Memory Project," is expected to last from August 30, 2017, to September 30, 2019, and will include everything from identifying "sites related to the establishment and operations of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, the greater San Francisco Bay Area" to building "a comprehensive collection of local BPP history through acquisition of additional materials from diverse sources including video oral history, photographs, news coverage and other media; disseminating publications that incorporate primary sources from BPP organizational records."

According to the funding announcement, the overall goal of the project is to build "diverse voices and communities together to understand their collective past and inspire a better future." It will be led by Dr. Ula Y. Taylor, the incoming chair of the Department of African American Studies at UC Berkeley, as well as include consultants knowledgeable about the history of BPP such as J. Tarika Lewis (the first female to join the Black Panther Party in Oakland) and Paul Lee (he served as a historical consultant on Spike Lee's Malcolm X and Eyes on the Prize II). The total anticipated award amount will be $97,999.70.

READ: Antoine Fuqua To Develop Movie About Black Panther Leader Fred Hampton

Earlier this year came news that director Antoine Fuqua was in charge of developing a film about BPP leader Fred Hampton. The movie will be based on Jeffrey Haas' book The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther, which has been adapted by Chris Smith.