ANOTHER BLM SCAM. There’s a quote, attributed to the intellectual Eric Hoffer, that describes much of what happens in Washington and the activist world: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Now the Justice Department has given us new evidence that Black Lives Matter, the cause that was so prominent in 2020, in what was sometimes called the great “racial reckoning,” actually began as a racket and went downhill from there.
Do you remember when BLM was raising money that it said would be used to post bail for protesters unjustly arrested in demonstrations over the death of George Floyd? Well, on Thursday, federal prosecutors in Oklahoma announced that Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson, the executive director of Black Lives Matter in Oklahoma City, known as Black Lives Matter OKC, has been indicted on 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering related to those bail funds.
This is from the Justice Department’s announcement: “Beginning in late spring 2020, Black Lives Matter OKC raised funds to support its social justice mission from online donors, as well as from national bail funds. In total, Black Lives Matter OKC raised more than $5.6 million, which included grants from national bail funds, including the Community Justice Exchange, Massachusetts Bail Fund, and Minnesota Freedom Fund. Most of those funds were routed through the Alliance for Global Justice, as fiscal sponsor to Black Lives Matter OKC.”
That last sentence is a reference to the fact that Black Lives Matter OKC did not have the IRS’s designation as a charity, known as 501(c)(3) status, so it routed contributions through an affiliated group, the Alliance for Global Justice, which was a registered charity. The Justice Department statement continued:
“According to the indictment, Black Lives Matter OKC was supposed to use these national bail fund grants to post pretrial bail for individuals arrested in connection with protests for racial justice after the death of George Floyd. When bail funds were returned to Black Lives Matter OKC, the national bail funds sometimes allowed Black Lives Matter OKC to keep all or a portion of the grant to establish a revolving bail fund, or for Black Lives Matter OKC’s social justice mission.”
But the indictment says Black Lives Matter OKC, in the person of executive director Dickerson, did not use the money to establish a revolving fund, or for the group’s “social justice mission.” Instead, the indictment says that between 2020 and 2025, Dickerson “deposited at least $3.15 million in returned bail checks into her personal accounts, rather than into Black Lives Matter OKC’s accounts.” According to the indictment, Dickerson spent it on:
- Recreational travel to Jamaica and the Dominican Republic for herself and her associates
- Tens of thousands of dollars in retail shopping
- At least $50,000 in food and grocery deliveries for herself and her children
- A personal vehicle registered in her name
- Six properties in Oklahoma City in her own name or in the name of Equity International LLC, an entity she exclusively controlled.
It was a nice touch that Dickerson named the company through which she held her ill-gotten real-estate gains “Equity International LLC,” giving new meaning to the familiar phrase “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
The Oklahoma investigation is not happening in a vacuum. In late October, the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department “is investigating whether leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement defrauded donors who contributed tens of millions of dollars during racial justice protests in 2020.” The investigation focuses on the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation and other groups operating under the Black Lives Matter rubric.
BLACK LIVES MATTER DIRECTOR IN OKLAHOMA CITY CHARGED WITH MONEY LAUNDERING AND WIRE FRAUD
The foundation reportedly accepted more than $90 million in donations in the post-Floyd frenzy. It reported $28 million in assets as of mid-2024. “Critics of the nonprofit foundation, and of the BLM movement broadly, accused organizers of not being transparent about how it was spending the donations,” the Associated Press reported. “The criticism grew louder after BLM foundation leaders in 2022 confirmed they used donations to purchase a $6 million Los Angeles-area property that includes a home with six bedrooms and bathrooms.”
There are local investigations going on as well. Perhaps in a few years, we will have a greater understanding of the private profiteering that went on in the troubled years following 2020, all in the name of social justice.