The founder of Black Lives Matter will leave the post among critics Black Lives Matter News

A founder of the Black Lives Matter company announced on Thursday that he is stepping down as executive director of the movement’s foundation. He condemned calling a far-right group a dirt campaign, but said neither this nor the recent criticism by other black organizers had any effect on his departure.

Patrisse Cullors, who has led the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for nearly six years, has said she will stop focusing on other projects, including the release of her second book and a multi-year TV development agreement with Warner Bros. Her. the last day with the foundation is Friday.

“I have created the infrastructure and support, and the necessary bones and foundations, to be able to move away,” Cullors told the Associated Press. “It seems like the right time.”

Cullors ’departure increased support and political influence in the U.S. and around the world for the BLM movement, which was formed almost eight years ago in the face of injustices against black Americans. The resignation also came as a result of the debate over the foundation’s economy and Cullors ’personal wealth.

The 37-year-old activist has said his resignation has been at work for more than a year and has nothing to do with personal attacks or disagreements within the movement by far-right groups.

“It was right-wing attacks that tried to discredit my character, and I don’t act on what the right-wing thinks of me,” Cullors said.

As it launches, the foundation will bring in two new senior executives to help guide them into the immediate future: Monifa Bandele, longtime BLM organizer and founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in New York, and Makani Themba, early sponsor of the BLM movement and Higher Ground Change Strategies in Jackson (Mississippi) chief strategist.

“I think they both have a lot of movement experience, but also a lot of executive experience,” Cullors said.

The BLM Foundation showed the AP in February that it earned more than $ 90 million last year after the May 2020 assassination. George Floyd, a black man last breaths Inspired under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer protests worldwide. The foundation said it ended 2020 with a balance of more than $ 60 million, after spending nearly a quarter of its assets on operating expenses, grants to organizations run by Blacks and other charitable performances.

Critics of the foundation should have given a large portion of that money more to Black family members who are victims of police brutality because they have been unable to obtain the resources needed to deal with their trauma and loss.

“That’s the most tragic aspect,” said Rev. T Sheri Dickerson, president of an Oklahoma City BLM chapter and representative of # BLM10, who has publicly criticized the foundation for funding and transparency.

“I know some of them [the families] they feel exploited, their pain exploited, and that’s never something I want to affiliate with, ”Dickerson said.

Cullors and the foundation said they provide support to families without making public announcements or reporting dollar amounts.

In 2020, the BLM Foundation created its chapter network as a collective sister called BLM Grassroots to build its capacity as a philanthropic organization. Although many groups use “Black Lives Matter” or “BLM” in their names, less than a dozen chapters are considered affiliate networks.

Over the past month, Cullors has targeted several conservative publications that have been accused of charging the foundation a high annual salary because it has just bought a home in Southern California.

In April, the foundation stated that Cullors was a volunteer executive director, and before 2019 “received a total of $ 120,000 since the organization was founded in 2013, for roles such as spokesperson and political education.”

“As a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization, [the foundation] it cannot and does not commit any organizational resources to the purchase of personal property by an employee or volunteer, “the foundation said in a statement.” Any argument or assertion to the contrary is false in the category. “

In 2018, Cullors released, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, a bestseller in the New York Times. He has also consulted in various racial justice projects outside the BLM, taking the reward for that work in his personal capacity.

He and the BLM movement have come a long way since its inception as a social media hashtag since 2013 absolution George Zimmerman, a Florida neighborhood volunteer, killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a volunteer neighborhood guard.

Cullors, along with the founders of BLM’s Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, were then committed to building a decentralized movement governed by the consensus of the collective members. In 2015, a network of chapters was created while donations and grants were poured. Garza and Tometi soon went online to focus on their projects online.

Cullors, arguably the most publicly visible of the founders, became the full executive director of the foundation last year out of sheer necessity, he said.

“We needed her,” said Melina Abdullah, who runs BLM Grassroots and co-founder, with Cullors, the first official chapter BLM has had in Los Angeles.

“George Floyd was killed and the whole world rose up,” Abdullah told the AP. “I would like to be there forever, but I know this is not feasible. The real test of any organization is that it can last from the outset of the founders. And I have no doubt that Black Lives Matter will survive, grow and develop, even if it leaves our last co-founder in a formal role. “

On October 5, St Martin’s Press will release Cullors ’latest book, An Abolitionists Handbook. He said his guide for entrepreneurs is to fight for an end to systemic racism in caring for each other and resolving internal conflicts. Cullors is also developing and producing original content for cable and streaming television focused on Black story, with a multi-year agreement with Warner Bros.

The first of his television projects will be released in July, he said.

“I think I will probably see less of it because I will not be the head of one of the most controversial organizations in the history of our movement,” Cullors said.

“I know I’m a leader, and I don’t stray from that. But there is no single leader in a movement. “