An independent investigative journalist who has studied the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), the internationally renowned non-profit organization that is often seen as the face of the Black Lives Matter movement, has revealed some of the sordid financial dealings involving the group’s top leaders in an investigative piece published by New York Magazine, a liberal outlet owned by Vox Media.
“In January, I wrote that my piece on the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation was one of the hardest I’d done,” Sean Kevin Campbell announced in a Twitter thread recently, referring to a previous report he authored dealing with the financing of the BLM movement. “This one has been heartbreaking. As organizers have fallen homeless, I uncovered a $6 million property purchased with BLMGNF funds.”
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
Campbell went on to describe the luxurious home purchased by the organization, which includes six bedrooms and bathrooms, a pool and a bungalow, a sound stage and an outdoor fireplace. The property is over 6,500 square feet, and was purchased by the organization for $6 million in cash in October 2020.
“The transaction has not been previously reported, and Black Lives Matter’s leadership had hoped to keep the house’s existence a secret,” Campbell reported. “Documents, emails, and other communications I’ve seen about the luxury property’s purchase and day-to-day operation suggest that it has been handled in ways that blur, or cross, boundaries between the charity and private companies owned by some of its leaders. It creates the impression that money donated to the cause of racial justice has been spent in ways that benefit the leaders of Black Lives Matter personally.”
In April of last year, the New York Post reported on the numerous properties BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors has purchased, including a $1.4 million home near Malibu, a wealthy enclave of Los Angeles. Khan-Cullors allegedly owns three homes in the Los Angeles area alone.
News of the real estate purchases by BLM leaders created a bevy of controversy among BLM supporters, including Hawk Newsome, the leader of the local chapter of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, which is independent of the BLMGNF. At the time, Newsome demanded “an independent investigation” into the BLMGNF and how it spent its money, much of it raised through donations.
“If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” Newsome said at the time, referring to Khan-Cullors who, like other BLM leaders, has described herself as a trained Marxist. “It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement.”
While local BLM chapters and activists struggle to raise funds, the leaders of the BLMGNF appear to be using the millions of dollars generated in income as their own personal piggy bank.
“They shouldn’t be walking around no Black people, no Black communities,” Michael Brown Sr., the father of Michael Brown Jr., who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 after he attacked the officer attempting to apprehend him, said about the BLMGNF leaders. “They should be somewhere in shame.”
