Patrisse Cullors, a Marxist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter, announced her resignation on Thursday, amidst widespread criticism of her and the organization for violent riots that erupted across the United States last year, the group’s extreme ideas, and controversy over Cullors’ lavish lifestyle.
Cullors said that adversaries’ criticism had no bearing on her choice to leave, stating, “Those were right-wing attacks that tried to discredit my character, and I don’t operate off of what the right thinks about me.”
Following an article in the New York Post in early April, controversy erupted about Cullors’ extravagant lifestyle: As protests broke out across the country in the name of Black Lives Matter, the group’s co-founder went on a real estate buying binge, snagging four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone, according to property records.
Patrisse Khan-Cullors, 37, also eyed property in the Bahamas at an ultra-exclusive resort where Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods both have homes, The Post has learned. Luxury apartments and townhouses at the beachfront Albany resort outside Nassau are priced between $5 million and $20 million, according to a local agent.
Hawk Newsome, the executive director of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, which is not linked with Khan-Cullors’ Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, replied to the news by calling for a “independent probe” into the organization, according to the Post.
“If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” he said. “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.”
Shortly after news of Cullors’ property purchasing frenzy leaked, the website for the consulting firm she owned and controlled went down.
In 2019, an L.A.-based jail reform group led by Cullors paid Cullors “in the neighborhood of $20,000 a month” and spent tens of thousands of dollars on “meetings” at a luxurious Malibu beach resort, according to Daily Caller investigative writer Andrew Kerr.
Following the news of Cullors’ resignation, Kerr added the following:
Cullors’ abrupt departure from the charity, which serves as the national arm of the BLM movement, came three weeks after the Daily Caller News Foundation reported that she had used her position as the charity’s leader to funnel business to an art company led by the father of her only child. Charity experts said BLM’s arrangement with the art company, Trap Heals, amounts to self-dealing and raises ethical and legal questions. …
BLM PAC paid Trap Heals $148,000 in November to co-produce an election night live stream event on her personal YouTube channel that, according to industry experts, should have cost a fraction of that price to produce, the DCNF previously reported.
The BLM PAC live stream was so poorly produced and riddled with so many technical issues that a conservative watchdog group told the DCNF it is considering filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over the “excessive payments.”
After its first publication, this story was updated to reflect new information.
Sources: Dailywire.com (1), heritage.org, foxnews.com, apnews.com, nypost.com, dailycaller.com (2), dailycaller.com (3), dailycaller.com (4), dailycaller.com (5), dailycaller.com (6), dailycaller.com (7)