A number of headlines have been making the rounds declaring that Black Lives Matter is going bankrupt. These are misleading, not only because they conflate the Black Lives Matter Global Network (BLM GN) and the BLM movement, but also because BLM GN is not, in fact, on the verge of bankruptcy.
To a certain extent, the confusion is understandable. BLM GN is the most visible and well-known of the various BLM organizations, the one founded by movement figureheads Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal “Ayo” Tometi. When the general public hears “BLM,” this is who they think of. The BLM movement is not known for its transparency, and it’s easy to confuse its various members and their alphabet soup of acronyms.
While BLM GN fancies itself as the head of the BLM movement, the reality is that BLM is a many-headed hydra. BLM GN ostensibly was once the parent organization of a multitude of grassroots BLM chapters, but disputes over funding and priorities have led many of them to part ways with the organization, some becoming entirely independent entities and others banding together to form new collectives (for example, the “BLM 10+”). Most of the BLM movement’s heavy lifting is done by these grassroots chapters.
Then there is the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a shadowy collective of more than 150 activist organizations that is even more radical than BLM GN. M4BL provides funding and administrative support to its members and is currently a fiscally sponsored project of the Common
