The leadership of the Black Lives Matter organization has come under intense scrutiny once again for the acquisition of numerous real estate properties and where the funding emanates from.
According to an explosive investigative report published by New York Magazine’s Sean Kevin Campbell, the three leaders of BLM – Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Melina Abdullah – allegedly purchased a $6 million home in Southern California that they deliberately tried to hide from the public.
There is also the charge from the report that BLM’s Global Network Foundation has hauled in the area of $90 million yet allegedly provided little to no support for BLM chapter leaders around the country who fell into great financial difficulty and even went homeless.
In January, I wrote that my piece on the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation was one of the hardest I'd done. This one has been heartbreaking. As organizers have fallen homeless, I uncovered a $6 million property purchased with BLMGNF funds. 1/ https://t.co/KUh6sCmTQh
— Sean Kevin Campbell (@Sean_Kev) April 4, 2022
Part of Campbell’s report was produced from a video the three leaders produced that commemorated the one-year anniversary of the execution of George Floyd on Memorial Day 2021. Floyd was killed by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Memorial Day 2020.
“It’s because we’re powerful because we are winning,” Cullors reportedly said when she defiantly responded to what she calls relentless right-wing media attacks. “It’s because we are threatening the establishment, we’re threatening white supremacy.”
The women vociferously and repeatedly deny any legal or ethical wrongdoing and reportedly stated they had planned to reveal the purchase by its May 15 tax filing deadline. However, Campbell reports that the latest pricey home, a seven-bedroom residence was purchased in October 2020 by a man named Dyane Pascall just two weeks after the BLMGNF received $66.5 million from its fiscal sponsor earlier in the month.
When I asked, my questions were called defamatory and the BLMGNF jumped into a mode where they sought to kill my story or detract from its findings. I know this because I later acquired a memo of their plans. They looked to bury the truth. 3/ https://t.co/KUh6sCmm0J
— Sean Kevin Campbell (@Sean_Kev) April 4, 2022
Jacob Harrold, the co-founder of Candid and the co-creator of a mechanism that keeps track of nonprofit organizations, believes the questions raised in the NY magazine report are necessary and done without malice.
“That’s a very legitimate critique,” Candid told the New York Post. “It’s not a critique that says what you’re doing is illegal or even unethical; it might just be strategic.”
Harrold openly wonders if the tens of millions that flowed into the BLM organization could have been appropriated in other ways.
“Why aren’t you spending it on policy or, you know, other strategies that an organization might take to address the core issues around Black Lives Matter?” Harold asked.
Through reporting, I learned that the BLMGNF has pooled resources with consulting firms run by Patrisse Cullors, the former exec director, and Shalomyah Bowers, the dep exec director, to monitor social media and investigate journalists including myself. 4/ https://t.co/KUh6sCmm0J
— Sean Kevin Campbell (@Sean_Kev) April 4, 2022
When I spoke with nonprofit experts, they told me that the luxury home and pooling of resources with interrelated entities raises red flags for nonprofit operations. Some said a formal investigation might be needed to sort everything out. 5/ https://t.co/KUh6sCmm0J
— Sean Kevin Campbell (@Sean_Kev) April 4, 2022
BLMGNF board member Shalomyah Bowers defends the housing purchase as a “housing and studio space” for recipients of the Black Joy Creators Fellowship and that no impropriety was committed by its leadership.
“The organization always planned to disclose the property on the upcoming 990 tax form due by May 15, as part of BLMGNF’s ongoing transparency efforts,” Bowers said in a statement to the NYP. “BLMGNF has and continues to utilize the space for programming and leadership off-sites. The property does not serve as a personal residence.”
