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Opinion: State Assembly Leaders Respond to National Park Service Yanking Grant for Black Panther History Project

Published

8 years ago

December 20, 2017

Oakland Post

By Anthony Rendon and Chris Holden

Apparently, history makes some people uncomfortable.

The facts make some people uncomfortable.

Pressure from people with a limited grasp of the past recently led the National Park Service to cancel a University of California historical research project regarding the Black Panther Party.

We know the Black Panthers are controversial. Even the document that awarded the grant refers to “the complex history of the Black Panther Party.”

But the project was for understanding that history, for probing into it, and how it related to historical incidents going back to World War II.

Instead of exploring history, we get an attempt to cover up the past by defunding the project.

The Fraternal Order of Police wrote to President Donald Trump, protesting the grant for the research.

That group has a complex history of its own, including protesting sales of Black Lives Matter t-shirts.

In their letter to the President, they called the Black Panthers “anti-American,” and quoted old FBI statements labeling it as “a black extremist group” advocating the “overthrow of the U.S. Government.”

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listed the Black Panthers as a hate group.

Yet, the FBI’s anti-Black Panther history goes far beyond that. The Black Panthers were subjected to constant surveillance, infiltration and attempts to discredit their activities.

Its members were criminalized, attacked, and sometimes killed for their pursuit of justice in the Black community.

Much of this was covered in an exhibit this year at the Oakland Museum of California. It is history.

Assemblymember Chris Holden

A thorough look at the Panthers’ history would include – as the Oakland museum did – the Party’s original 10 “wants.” They started with freedom, employment, and education, before getting to point 7: “We want an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of black people.”

Officially sanctioned violence against Blacks is a fact of American history, going back to the Atlantic Slave Trade.

The letter opposing the National Park Service grant barely touches on that shameful past, and in a skewed manner.

The letter suggests a parallel between its opposition to the research project and opposition to memorials to the Confederacy that subjugated Blacks as slaves. That is wrong.

To call Confederate markers, as the letter does, “memorials to aspects of the darker times in our history,” glosses over the 400-year legacy of the horrors inflicted on African Americans and on our country by the Confederacy.

Today, communities of color still face negative reactions for organizing to pursue justice and equality in the face of incidents of peace officer violence.

Groups like Black Lives Matter are seen as threats to a conservative world view. Those who share that view use the killing of a park ranger by a Panther as an excuse to defund the Black Panther project.

That is an attempt to cover up history.

Some members of the Black Panthers committed inexcusable acts. We won’t cover that up.

But we also know Black Panthers filled a void in the social safety net for its community through programs such as benefits counseling; drug/alcohol abuse awareness programs; free food, dental, and health programs; and much more.

Speaker Anthony Rendon

The historical research project that has been aborted promised to collect oral histories by those affected by the Black Panthers and their movement.

The project award document put out by the Parks Service speaks to an effort to “truthfully” address the legacy of the Black Panthers.

Those who want to stifle the project seem afraid to engage in meaningful dialogue about the past.

If history, any history, offers a lesson to us, it is that they will not be successful in the long run.

It has been suggested by Martin Luther King, Jr. and by Theodore Parker, a 19^th-century anti-slavery activist, that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice.

Maybe it’s right for opponents of this research to be afraid of history, because the facts suggest history will not be kind to them.

Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) is the 70th Speaker of the California State Assembly. Assemblymember Chris Holden is the Chair of the California Black Caucus (D-Pasadena).

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

1 week ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

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1 week ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

2 weeks ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke