Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors listens to a question during an interview with The Associated Press in Los Angeles, Wednesday, April 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

By Associated Press // EEW Magazine Online // Black Lives Matter

What is happening with Black Lives Matter? Has there been financial impropriety?

No, insists Patrisse Cullors, former leader of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. Despite swirling allegations, she maintains that neither she nor anyone else in leadership misused millions of dollars in donations.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Cullors said that BLM was, in fact, ill-prepared to handle a tidal wave of contributions in the aftermath of protests over George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020. She said the foundation was slow to build the necessary groundwork, part of the growing pains of an organization that went from an idea to a global brand almost in an instant.

Black Lives Matter came under scrutiny after the 2020 purchase of a $6 million Laurel Canyon Boulevard property. (Courtesy Tech MLS/Redfin)

“On paper, it looks crazy,” she said. “We use this term in our movement a lot, which is we’re building the plane while flying it. I don’t believe in that anymore. The only regret I have with BLM is wishing that we could have paused for one to two years to just not do any work and just focus on the infrastructure.”

Recent disclosures that the foundation had paid $6 million for a Los Angeles compound in 2020 unleashed a torrent of criticism and social media chatter. The property in Studio City, including a home with six bedrooms and bathrooms, a swimming pool, a soundstage and office space, is meant to be both a meeting venue and a campus for Black artists.

The mansion is intended to be an exclusive hub for Black creatives. (Courtesy Tech MLS/Redfin)

Some criticism came from BLM supporters like Justin Hansford, director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University. He said the property purchase could be weaponized by movement opponents, leading possible donors to shy away from Black-led social justice organizations: “That’s the thing that you don’t want to get out of hand.”

Cullors defended the purchase. “We really wanted to make sure that the global network foundation had an asset that wasn’t just financial resources,” she said, “and we understood that not many Black-led organizations have property. They don’t own their property.”

Cullors said she had made mistakes and even some regrettable choices that haven’t fostered trust and knows that she gave critics an opening when she issued a statement denying suggestions that she had lived at the Studio City property or taken advantage of it for personal gain. She later acknowledged to the AP that during a four-day stay at the property, she had used the compound for purposes that were not strictly business.

She said in January 2021, while seeking refuge at the property amid threats on her life, she hosted a small party to celebrate the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The gathering included about 15 people, including BLM Los Angeles chapter members and other prominent movement supporters, she said.

And in March 2021, she held a private birthday party for her son at the property, for which Cullors said she intended to pay a rental fee to the foundation. The foundation confirmed it had billed her, and it said it was reviewing its policies to prevent such uses in the future.

Cullors said, in hindsight, she should not have used the property that way.

“I look back at that and think, that probably wasn’t the best idea,” she said.

Based on that admission alone, UK Daily Mail published an extensive article accusing Cullors of being a liar and highlighting how she has founded several nonprofits using BLM funds. The 38-year-old bestselling author and artist also said she had hired her mother, sister, and brother to help maintain the luxurious mansion.

Notwithstanding, Cullors angrily and adamantly denied accusations that she had personally benefited in the six years she guided the BLM foundation, including media reports that she had purchased homes for herself and members of her family.

“The idea that (the foundation) received millions of dollars and then I hid those dollars in my bank account is absolutely false,” she said. “That’s a false narrative. It’s impacted me personally and professionally, that people would accuse me of stealing from Black people.”

BLM first appeared as a Twitter hashtag following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida. The next year, the death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri, saw the movement’s emergence in the political realm.

Just over a year ago, the foundation announced a $90 million fundraising haul. That announcement drew sharp criticisms over access to donor funds, as well as broader calls for openness from activists in several local BLM chapters and from the families of police brutality victims who had rallied to the movement.

Cullors acknowledged that a lack of transparency about the foundation’s board and staffing drove perceptions that things were amiss. And when the organization was transparent, revealing that it had raised millions, the reaction wasn’t what she expected.

“I thought practicing radical transparency with Black people would have been received well,” she said. “What was unhelpful about releasing it was not getting enough people allying with us about it. We weren’t the only organization to receive millions of dollars.”

Then Cullors resigned as foundation director to work on personal projects— a departure she said had long been planned and was unconnected with any alleged improprieties.

In the year since her resignation, the BLM foundation hasn’t hired new leadership or publicly discussed plans for money still sitting in its coffers.

Two veteran civil rights organizers who were announced last May as interim senior executives for the foundation said they never began serving in that capacity, citing in a statement a failure to reach an agreement with BLM’s leadership council about the scope of their work and decision-making authority.

It was only earlier this month that the foundation announced a new board of directors, which leaders said will grow in the coming months.

AP writer Donald Thompson in Sacramento contributed this report.