1. Are BLM Leaders ’Trained Marxists?’
The group’s co-founders are Patrisse Khan-Cullors,
| ...also known as Patrisse Cullors ... |
Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza, all of them black women.
"The first thing, I think, is that we actually do have an ideological frame," Khan-Cullors said in a 2015 interview with Real News Network. "Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists."
2. What’s the Official Organization?
More than one Black Lives Matter appears to exist, but the one primary associated with its best-known founders and that receives the largest level of donations is the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation.
According to the group’s website, the organization has a national network of about 40 chapters.
Black Lives Matter as a movement, or at least a slogan, recently has attracted broad support in favor of racial equality and opposition to police brutality.
Two-thirds of Americans say they either strongly or somewhat support the Black Lives Matter movement, according to a Pew Research poll.
However, at least one self-described "trained Marxist" founded the organization behind the movement, and that organization also has called for dismantling the nuclear family—something that likely extends beyond the goals of many supporters.
"This hardcore cadre, they are parasitic on genuine outrage and genuine injustice," Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
"I don’t know anyone on the planet who doesn’t think the George Floyd death was an injustice," Walter said. "That’s why it was against the law. That’s why they [the four Minneapolis police officers involved] are being prosecuted. Most of the people out protesting are going to be moved by the outrage of the moment. The problem is that you have this cadre."
Walter was referring primarily to the three founders of Black Lives Matter as well as a board member with Thousand Currents, the leading funder of the group.
Here are four things to know about the founders and organization behind Black Lives Matter.
1. Are BLM Leaders ’Trained Marxists?’
The Black Lives Matter movement began after the 2013 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17, in Sanford, Florida, and picked up after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, 18, in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.
The group’s co-founders are Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza, all of them black women.
"The first thing, I think, is that we actually do have an ideological frame," Khan-Cullors said in a 2015 interview with Real News Network. "Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists."
Khan-Cullors continued:
We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories. And I think that what we really tried to do is build a movement that could be utilized by many, many black folk. We don’t necessarily want to be the vanguard of this movement. I think we’ve tried to put out a political frame that’s about centering who we think are the most vulnerable amongst the black community, to really fight for all of our lives.
Khan-Cullors, who serves as strategic adviser to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, is an artist and organizer from Los Angeles, according to the group’s website.
Khan-Cullors, 36, is also the founder of Dignity and Power Now, a group that advocates for incarcerated people and their families. A Fulbright scholar, she is the New York Times best-selling author of the book "When They Call You a Terrorist."
Garza, an organizer in Oakland, California, is also special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, an advocacy group for domestic workers.
Garza, 39, was named to The Root’s 2016 list of 100 African American achievers and influencers and is the recipient of the 2016 Glamour Women of the Year Award and the 2016 Marie Claire New Guard Award. She was recognized as a Community Change Agent at the BET’s 2016 Black Girls Rock Awards.
While two founders of Black Lives Matter are on the West Coast, Tometi works out of New York. The group’s website describes her as a "Nigerian-American writer, strategist, and community organizer" and a "transnational feminist."
Tometi, 35, created online platforms and social media strategy during the early days of the movement.
She also is executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and, according to the website, is featured at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.
2. What’s the Official Organization?
More than one Black Lives Matter appears to exist, but the one primary associated with its best-known founders and that receives the largest level of donations is the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation.
According to the group’s website, the organization has a national network of about 40 chapters.
In 2016, the left-leaning grantmaker Thousand Currents, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group, became the financial sponsor of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation.
Thousand Currents reported $3.35 million in donations earmarked for the BLM Global Network Foundation in 2019, according to Capital Research Center, a watchdog group for nonprofits.
3. What Does the Organization Want?
Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation doesn’t hide its more out-of-the mainstream views, although many of them are stated in broad terms.
"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ’villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable," the organization says on its website.
The website uses the word "comrades" several times, in one instance to say: "We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts."
Although the organization states that "We are unapologetically Black in our positioning," it focuses heavily on something that traditionally has not been part of African American activism—sexual orientation and gender identity:
4. What Is Thousand Currents?
Notably, the vice chairwoman of the board of directors for Thousand Currents is Susan Rosenberg, a convicted felon who participated in bombing buildings in the Northeast and Washington, D.C.
Rosenberg was part of M19, short for May 19th Communist Organization. Her memoir "An American Radical," details her 16 years in federal prison.
At her sentencing hearing in 1984, Rosenberg urged supporters to "continue to fight for the defeat of U.S. imperialism."
"One of the biggest bombs they had went off in the U.S. Capitol and tore up that fine Democratic slave owner John C. Calhoun's portrait," Capital Research Center's Walter said of Rosenberg and M19. "The Weather Underground wasn't really radical enough for her. Some of those people ended up wimping out and going off to be stock brokers and whatever. That wasn't good enough for her and she stayed radical."
M19's bombings reportedly were for the sake of causing enough disruption to prevent President Ronald Reagan's reelection in 1984. Rosenberg was a member of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. President Bill Clinton commuted her 58-year sentence on his last day in office in January 2001. 
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