A Note on

Patrisse Cullors and the Black Lives Matter Global Network

For the first post in our Study Series, we highlighted a 2019 article by Patrisse Cullors titled “Abolition and Reparations: Histories of Resistance, Transformative Justice, and Accountability”. As students of abolition, we want to bring attention to some serious statements that have come out regarding Cullors and BLM as an organization.

In February 2021, the Black Lives Matter Global Network (BLMGN) revealed that it raised $90 million in 2020. This revelation came after years of calls for financial transparency, accountability, and less hierarchy within BLMGN from local grassroots chapters. At the end of the month, a group of 10 BLM chapters released a statement bringing public attention to these issues. They also critiqued Patrisse Cullors for appointing herself as Executive Director of the organization, and for forming two new organizations under BLM—the Black Lives Matter Political Action Committee and BLM Grassroots—without the chapters’ knowledge or consent. In their statement the BLM 10 share that:

“In our experience, chapter organizers have been consistently prevented from establishing financial transparency, collective decision making, or collaboration on political analysis and vision within BLMGN” 

Another statement issued by the Black Power Collective (formerly known as BLM Inland Empire), provides a further critique of the two new BLM formations created under Cullors executive direction. Building on the BLM10 statement, they explain:

“The use of the BLM name, which we believed was intended to unify our struggle, has been commodified and debased [...] The actions demonstrated by the Global network have provided proof that the Global Network is essentially a steering committee acting in the best interest of various fractions within the Democratic Party. Additionally, the creation of the Black Lives Matter Political Action Committee is a violation of our collective agreement. This agreement was composed of two rules: 1. We do not work with police, 2. We do not endorse politicians.”

Most recently, Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, and Lisa Simpson, the mother of Richard Risher, issued a statement calling on Patrisse Cullors, BLMGN, and other prominent Black “activists” to “step down, stand back, and stop monopolizing and capitalizing our fight for justice and human rights.” The mothers also explained how, although BLMGN uses the faces and names of their murdered loved ones, their families have seen little to no financial support from BLMGN (we encourage you to send personal donations to the cashapps of $SamariaRice and $LisaLee693). According to these mothers:

“We don’t want or need y’all parading in the streets accumulating donations, platforms, movie deals, etc. off the death of our loved ones, while the families and communities are left clueless and broken. Don’t say our loved ones’ names period. That’s our truth!”

We must grapple with how Cullors’ actions and the actions of the BLMGN diverge from the lessons Cullors champions in “Abolition and Reparations.” While we feel Cullors’ writing offers a helpful introduction to PIC abolition, transformative justice, and reparations, we also believe that Cullors and BLMGN are implicated in a reification of the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC), wherein there is a lack of transparency and accountability.

Rather than separating the author from her work, we want to explore the ways in which we can draw helpful lessons from this piece, whilst simultaneously critiquing Cullors and BLMGN as an organization. Additionally, we want to reject the neoliberal tendency to individualize systemic issues. Therefore, instead of solely focusing on Cullors as an individual, we wish to use her position as Executive Director as a point of entry for analyzing broader problems such as the NPIC, black capitalism, hierarchical leadership structures in movements toward abolition, and more.

Taking these concerns into account, in responding to this situation, we pose the following questions:

  1. How can we honor the important lessons Cullors brings forward in “Abolition and Reparations,” while simultaneously accounting for the inconsistencies in her “abolitionist” theory and her capitalist leadership practices?

  2. What do you imagine transparency and accountability to look like within the spaces in which you organize? How does your vision align with (or diverge from) Cullors’/BLMGN’s actions?

3. What impact do you think money has on political organizing at an interpersonal, local and/or national level? How does money help and/or hurt our ability to organize towards abolition?

4. Knowing that under racial capitalism our politics are likely to be debased and commodified, how can we respond to and resist the influence of capitalism and the NPIC while sustaining and growing our movement for abolition? What structures or practices do you use to work against these conditions?