We can grant that people and major corporations donated to Black Lives Matter because they genuinely believed they were helping the cause of social justice in America.
More and more, though, it looks like they got played.
The Washington Examiner reported recently that Shalomyah Bowers, the secretary of the board for the BLM Global Network Foundation, was accused of funneling $10 million of BLM funds to a consulting firm he owns.
The claim appeared in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles. Black Lives Matter Grassroots, a nonprofit group that represents local BLM chapters across America, filed the lawsuit, the Examiner reported.
The foundation took in more than $90 million after Minneapolis man George Floyd died in police custody in May 2020.
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But local chapters have long complained that they have seen little, if any, of that money.
In announcing the lawsuit, Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of the BLM chapter in LA, noted the national board of directors, including Bowers, has been “engaging in self-dealing, enriching themselves off of the backs of people who put their blood, sweat and tears into this movement,” according to the Examiner.
The Examiner pointed out that the Tides Foundation, a left-wing advocacy group, has held back on $26 million of BLM’s cash under its control because of questions about its shady finances.
As The Free Press reported earlier this year, BLM’s national board came under scrutiny after the group paid $6 million for a swanky 6,500-square-foot, a seven-bedroom mansion in Southern California.
The house, purchased in October 2020, was reportedly to be used as a “housing and studio space” for BLM co-founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Melina Abdullah, who now has apparently turned on her colleagues.
That deal was made a few months after Cullors spent $3.2 million to buy four houses in different parts of the country, including one in an LA suburb that is more than 90 percent white.
That’s not all.
The BLM foundation also paid $970,000 for “creative services” done by a company founded by a man who fathered a child with Cullors.
The foundation also paid more than $840,000 to a security firm run by Cullors’ brother.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Free Press.
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