On February 26, 2013, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. This tragedy initially sparked general discomfort, but when George Zimmerman was acquitted, many took to the streets to protest. This incident inspired three women in particular to fight against brutality aimed at the black community: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. They went on to found Black Lives Matter. This organization became incredibly popular in the year 2020, after the death of George Floyd and the countless protests that occurred on the streets of America. BLM's popularity swept over the nation, in fact, celebrities such as Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, and Harry Styles, donated large amounts of money to this platform. In the year of 2020 alone, this organization is said to have made over 90 million dollars.
In recent months, controversy arose after a group of BLM local chapters, referred to as BLM10, stated that they have received little financial support from BLM. In response to this, Patricia Cullors stated they were “often scraping for money “, and went on to say that they have only recently been bringing in the money they deserve. While it may be true that BLM has only recently began making large amounts of money, local chapters still said that the amount of money they were being given was not at all proportionate to the amount of money the organization has been making. If the local chapters of BLM are not receiving this money, where is the money going? A simple way to begin to answer this question would be to consult with the person in charge of the funds at BLM, but that information seems to be unknown. After Patricia Cullors stepped down from her position, she named Makani Themba and Monifa Bandele as the new senior executives, but it has been recently revealed that they never actually took this job, due to disagreements within the organization. The lack of information the general public has regarding where the millions of dollars in BLM's possession is going is highly unsettling, and we can only hope more light is shed on this topic in later weeks.
Photo Creds: CNN
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