BERKELEY — A month after announcing its plans to greenlight $98,000 in federal funds for a project by a UC Berkeley professor documenting the Black Panther Party’s legacy, the National Park Service has pulled the plug amid a fierce backlash by conservatives who decried the history of what they labeled “a violent extremist group.”

At the time, the park service said the project would “memorialize a history that brought meaning to lives far beyond the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Then, critics got wind of it. Conservative news outlets said it was outrageous for the feds to give taxpayer money to honor the Black Panther’s legacy. The Fraternal Order of Police fired off a letter dated Oct. 19 to President Donald Trump, expressing that organization’s “outrage and shock.”

Amid the criticism, the National Park Service has changed course.

“At present, I can confirm that the project in question will not receive funding from the National Park Service,” spokesman Craig Dalby said. He said the agreement had not been finalized and after further review the NPS decided not to move forward.

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The quiet reversal, with no further details offered, in contrast to the initial public announcement, came after harsh criticism from conservative groups and websites.

Ula Taylor, the incoming chair of Cal’s African-American studies department, and the lead investigator for the project, could not be reached for comment. UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said he could not provide any further information.

“The researchers put forth a project that was selected by the National Park Service,” Mogulof said. “In terms of why they were selected, the park service has the answer, not the campus. And in terms of why they rescinded it, they have the answer, not the campus.”

The National Park Service had announced its intentions to award the grant for the “Black Panther Party Research, Interpretation & Memory Project” without seeking other proposals.

“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,” the park service wrote in the public notice. “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.”

In response, Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, wrote to Trump, calling for a halt to the funding. He wrote that U.S. Park Ranger Kenneth Patrick was killed by Veronza Leon Curtis Bowers Jr., who was affiliated with the Black Panther Party. Patrick was on patrol in the Point Reyes National Seashore when he was fatally shot in August 1973, according to news accounts.

“It is appalling that Ranger Patrick’s own agency now proposes to partner with UC Berkeley and two active members of this violent and repugnant organization,” Canterbury wrote. “As far as we are concerned, the only meaning they brought to any lives was grief to the families of their victims.”

According to the proposal, the project sought to document “how the BPP impacted the visual arts, music, dance and styles of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s and underscore the vastness of its impact on American culture.”

A major goal was to provide information that would be useful to future scholars of the movement.

Taylor was the co-author of “Panther: A Pictorial History of the Black Panther Party and the Story Behind the Film.” She was the historical consultant on the Mario Van Peebles’ film “Panther.” Two of her consultants for the Berkeley project, J. Tarika Lewis and Billy Jennings, were members of the Oakland Panther party.

It is unclear what is next for the project now that the park service will not be providing funding.