Op-ed: Americans are sending money to Black Lives Matter, whose fundraising is handled by a group with a convicted terrorist on it's board

Op-ed: Americans are sending money to Black Lives Matter, whose fundraising is handled by a group with a convicted terrorist on it’s board

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This editorial is written by a former Chief of Police and staff writer for Law Enforcement Today.

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Black lives matter as a movement is fine. Black Lives Matter as an organization? Not so much.

It’s too bad that businesses, the public, and politicians do not seem to know the difference. The Washington Examiner is reporting that the organization Black Lives Matter is sponsored financially by a leftist group, Thousand Currents, whose board of directors includes a convicted terrorist.

Likewise, a convicted cop-killer is named by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza as one of her heroes. Radical group? You decide.

Garza, who is one of three co-founders of the Marxist-leaning organization, is not remiss about mentioning the fact that Joanne Chesimard, a convicted cop-killer is one of her heroes. Given the anti-police rhetoric that foams from the mouth of the organization, that is hardly surprising.

Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, was allegedly assisted in escaping from prison by Susan Rosenberg, a member of the board of directors for the left-wing Thousand Currents group, which handles the intake of donations to Black Lives Matter. Rosenberg is also a convicted terrorist.

Ironically, the Thousand Currents webpage was just pulled down this week, however Rosenberg had been listed as the vice chairwoman of the board of directors for the group, as reported by the Capital Research Center.

She was listed on the Thousand Currents’ form 990s which were submitted to the IRS in fiscal years 2016, 2017 and 2018. That form showed that Rosenberg had been involved with Thousand Currents during the entire time the charity had its financial arrangement with Black Lives Matter Global Foundation, which started in 2016.

According to The Garden State Observer, financial statements that were prepared by Thousand Currents showed that during FY 2017-2019, 83.3% of funds spent were on travel, consulting and payroll, with a mere 6% directed toward outside groups such as local BLM chapters, the Daily Caller News Foundation had previously reported.

It was also reported that in addition to removing the page from the website that indicated Rosenberg as a board of directors member, Thousand Currents also took down pages that had disclosed financial information, including audits and Form 990s going back to 2005.

Rosenberg had been a member of a radical leftist militant group by the name of the May 19th Communist Organization, which was affiliated with the Weather Underground terror group, as well as other radicals. She was convicted on weapons and explosives charges and sentenced to 58 years in prison, having served 16 years before being pardoned by…President Bill Clinton in 2001…how weird is that?

At the time of her release, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White aggressively lobbied against her release, arguing her involvement in a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored car, which resulted in the deaths of two police officers and one security guard. While she was charged for her involvement in that incident, the charges were dropped because she was already in prison, according to the New York Times.

As previously reported by Law Enforcement Today, Black Lives Matter has not yet been designated as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, however, uses Thousand Currents—which is an IRS approved 501(c)(3) group—as its fiscal sponsor.

Donations made on the BLM website are filtered through the left-wing ActBlue donation platform, then through to Thousand Currents which distributes the funds to BLM. . Sounds a bit like a money-laundering scheme, but we digress. Ironically, ActBlue is also the fundraising platform of the Democratic Party…what a tangled web we weave.

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Murdered officer's grave desecrated before headstone even placed

Black Lives Matter has been receiving copious amounts of cash from unsuspecting dupes who are trying to show how woke they are by donating to a charity which they believes has as its mission saving black lives.

In fact, Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization which is trying to fundamentally transform the United States. 

 Among their initiatives are defunding the police, open borders, reparations for African Americans, universal income, and healthcare, emptying prisons and redistribution of  wealth. Oh, not to mention turning our capitalist society into a socialist one. Hopefully, companies such as Walmart, Chick fil-a, and many others who have been dumping cash their way are fine with operating in a socialist framework.

Rosenberg was an active radical in the 1960s and 1970s who was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for a time and was arrested in 1984 while she was unloading 740 pounds of dynamite and weapons, including a submachine gun into a New Jersey storage unit.

It is believed that she was part of planned politically motivated bombing plots. In addition, Rosenberg and her associates were charged with roles in bombings during the 1980s which took place at the United States Capitol and the Navy War college, plus other targets. She and her posse were also tied to a 1982 Brink’s armored car robbery in which a guard and two police officers were killed.

As mentioned above, Rosenberg is also believed to have played a part in Shakur’s prison escape.

In 2014, Garza wrote an article in which she explained that when she “use[d] Assata’s [Shakur] powerful demand in my organizing work, I always begin by sharing where it comes from, sharing about Assata’s significance to the Black Liberation Movement, what it’s political purpose and message is, and why it’s important in our context.”

Shakur presently resides on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List, with a $1 million reward. Shakur escaped from a New Jersey prison in 1979 while incarcerated for life relative to the murder of a police officer during a traffic stop. A member of the Black Liberation Army, Shakur and two associates were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike for a traffic violation by two New Jersey state troopers.

At the time, Shakur was wanted for a number of serious crimes, including bank robbery. This led them to shoot at the officers, injuring one trooper and killing the other, Werner Foerster, execution-style at point-black range. She was apprehended and incarcerated, however escaped to Cuba in 1984.

The Black Lives Matter website operates under the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which is chaired by co-founder of BLM Patrisse Cullors, who is a self-described Marxist.

 

In 2017, a report from BLM said that it’s founders—Garza, Cullors, and Opal Tometi—were “three radical Black organizers.”

In a 2015 interview with Real News Network, Cullors said that she and Garza “are trained Marxists.” She further said, “We are super versed on, sort of, ideological theories, and I think what we really try to do is build a movement that could be used by many, many black folks.” Cullors told CNN’s Jake Tapper just this month that “Trump not only needs to not be in office in November, but he should resign now.”

More recently, BLM announced grant funds totaling $12.5 million.

Since George Floyd’s death, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has been raking in cash, telling the Associated Press that it had received more than 1.1 million individual donations as of the middle of June, with an average donation being $33—which means they realized over $33 million in less than one month. That’ll buy a lot of guns—and politicians.

Black Lives Matter was founded in response to the shootings of Trayvon Martin by a Hispanic neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman.

Their trademark slogan, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” came about as the result of a criminal who robbed a convenience store, Michael Brown, who assaulted the owner and ended up getting shot by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer as he tried to overpower  him and take his gun.

The whole narrative that Brown was surrendering to the officer with his hands up when he was shot was debunked by the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder during the administration of President Obama.

It’s a shame that people are not looking into the difference between believing that black lives matter and supporting the radical Marxist group Black Lives Matter with their wallets. 

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About The Author

Joseph Patrick is a retired police officer and a long-time law enforcement professional who is passionate about law enforcement and politics.

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