BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors admitted the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation bought a $6 million mansion in California.
Mike covered the initial story when it broke: Black Lives Matter Organization Reportedly Used Donor Cash to Buy a $6 Million House
But BLM bought the house for business! However, Cullors admitted she used it for personal purposes twice.
Cullors played the victim in an interview with the Associated Press, claiming the organization “was ill-prepared to handle a tidal wave of contributions” it received after the death of George Floyd in May 2020:
She said the foundation was slow to build the necessary groundwork.She and others offered insights into the growing pains of an organization that went from an idea to a global brand, almost in an instant.“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.”
The BLM foundation has been around since 2013. Somehow during all this time, no one could hire an accountant or figure out what to do with donations? How did they distribute money before 2020?
The house has six bedrooms and bathrooms with office space along with a swimming pool and a soundstage.
Cullors insisted they bought the house to make it “a meeting venue and a campus for Black artists.”
But don’t make any accusations against Cullors:
But the 38-year-old bestselling author and artist 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.”
But Cullors acknowledged she held her son’s birthday party at the mansion in March 2021. The BLM foundation sent her a bill for the party, but I don’t see in the AP interview any confirmation that she paid the bill.
Cullors also threw a party to celebrate Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. She said she sought “refuge at the property amid threats on her life.”
The BLM foundation has been a mess since its 2013 inception. It only “caught up with its financial filings” recently when California deemed the foundation “delinquent in submitting required charity disclosures from 2020.” The state shows the foundation is current with the filings.
Only now a board member, one of two, says the foundation “is deeply devoted to investing in organizations that are committed to doing the work of abolition (and) committed to building Black power.” Before then, who knows because no one was in charge:
Records show a small number of people with responsibility over the foundation. A 990 filing submitted to the IRS for January through June 2020, lists Cullors as an uncompensated executive director and the foundation’s only employee. At that point, still under the fiscal sponsorship of a well-established charity, the BLM foundation reported no revenue, assets, contributions or expenses.The filing lists just two board members, including Shalomyah Bowers, who is the president at Bowers Consulting, a firm that has provided operational support to the BLM foundation for two years.In a phone interview, Bowers said the organization had been working since Cullors’ departure to sort out its infrastructure. He said the organization underwent an independent financial audit which, along with the expected May release of its latest 990 filing, will show that “nothing impermissible or nefarious has happened” with BLM’s finances.
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