'Black Lives Matter' Co-Founder Resigns Amid Money Controversy

Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors announced Thursday that she will be leaving the group behind as questions about her spending refuse to fade away. Cullors, whose multimillion-dollar mansion purchases led…

IJR SyndicatedMay 28, 20213 min read

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should have gone elsewhere.

“That is the most tragic aspect,” said the Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson, president of an Oklahoma City BLM chapter and a representative of the #BLM10, a group of organizers that has been at odds with the foundation.

“I know some of are feeling exploited, their pain exploited, and that’s not something that I ever want to be affiliated with,” Dickerson said, according to the AP.

This fall, St. Martin’s Press will release Cullors’ “An Abolitionists Handbook,” which she says is a guide for activists.

Her TV projects, she said, will focus on black stories and will debut in July.

“I think I will probably be less visible, because I won’t be at the helm of one of the largest, most controversial organizations right now in the history of our movement,” Cullors said.

In April, the New York Post reported that Cullors had bought four homes in the United States for $3.2 million and was looking at purchasing a multimillion-dollar property in the Bahamas.

That followed a report in the real estate blog Dirt about her purchase of a $1.4 million home in the exclusive, mostly white Los Angeles enclave of Topanga Canyon.

Hawk Newsome, the head of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, a separate group from the national foundation, called for an “independent investigation” into the national foundation’s finances.

Cullors said she never took money from the foundation, not even as a salary, and that her income came from her book deal and a YouTube deal.

In April, the foundation said Cullors was paid $120,000 from 2013 to 2019. It insisted none of its Money was used to buy the homes purchased by Cullors, who began Black Lives Matter by calling herself a trained Marxist.

“As a registered 501c3 non-profit organization, (the foundation) cannot and did not commit any organizational resources toward the purchase of personal property by any employee or volunteer,” the foundation said in a statement.

“Any insinuation or assertion to the contrary is categorically false.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.