Black Lives Matter’s co-founder Patrisse Cullors has announced that she is resigning from the organisation’s foundation – not because of what she called ‘right-wing attacks’ on her credibility, but to work on a book and a television project on black stories.
Cullors, who has led the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for the past six years, was the subject of scrutiny and criticism recently when it emerged that she had bought a $1.4m luxury home in Topanga Canyon, near Malibu, and owned three other homes, including a custom ranch in Georgia.
According to the BBC, Cullors said she would step down from the BLM Foundation to focus on her forthcoming second book, An Abolitionist’s Handbook, and a TV development deal with Warner Bros highlighting black stories.
Dismissing suggestions that her resignation had anything to do with the controversy over her property acquisitions, Cullors said: ‘Those were right-wing attacks that tried to discredit my character, and I don’t operate off of what the right thinks about me.’
The BBC reported that ‘conservative critics – but also some black activists – called for an investigation into whether Ms Cullors had used the organisation’s funds to enrich herself’, citing the BLM foundation as having said in April that Cullors had received $120,000 between 2013 and 2019 for her work.
The grieving parents of Michael Brown and Breonna Taylor – two African Americans whose deaths at the hands of white police officers were often cited by Black Lives Matter – last month reportedly complained that the organisation had done nothing to help them.
The BLM Foundation told Associated Press in February that it had raised $90m amid last year’s racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.