How the BLM Chapter System is Falling Apart Due to BLM Discarding Them and Hoarding Donation Money

Executive Summary

• BLM built up chapters that it massively underfunded.
• This is one reason the BLM chapters are disappearing.

Introduction

We spent a large number of hours analyzing BLM. One thing that popped out to us as we were performed our research into BLM is that BLM’s chapter system has gone into a steep decline.

Our References for This Article

If you want to see our references for this article and other Brightwork related articles, see this link.

Why Does Utah Have a BLM Chapter?

BLM Utah became famous for stating that the US flag symbolizes racism and hate and that the only people who fly the US flag are hateful racists. However, the fact that BLM has a Utah chapter is curious as Utah is 1.5% black. This brings up the question of why BLM has a chapter there. With such a smaller percentage of the population being black, this means that BLM Utah has a small potential to address black police shootings. We searched and could not find a website for BLM in Baltimore. However, Baltimore has a large black population, with 62% of the city of Baltimore being black.

Why is there a BLM Utah, which seems like a waste of an office, while Baltimore has no BLM chapter? And it’s not just Baltimore. St. Louis, another very black city, has no BLM Chapter.

Why do some of the most black cities in the US have no BLM chapter, while a state like Utah, which has no need for a BLM chapter, has one?

The Other BLM Chapters

In BLM’s Impact report, which BLM issued to quell the criticism into what appeared to be charity fraud, they listed the following cities as BLM chapters.

• Boston
• Canada
• Chicago
• DC
• Denver
• Detroit
• Lansing
• Memphis
• Philadelphia
• South Bend
• Nashville

We found this when we looked for these chapters in Feb 2022.

Chapter #1: BLM Boston

BLM Boston’s website had a total of five pages, with one of those being a contact page. There were no articles and maybe a thousand or so words of text.

Chapter #2: BLM Canada

BLM Canada has around eight pages on its website. However, Canada has about 3.5% of its population as black. As with Utah, there are very few BLM chapters in total. (and far fewer than you might think, as you will see later in the article) Why is one in Canada?

Furthermore, the police violence that started the BLM movement is based in the US. The number of blacks killed in Canada by police is exceedingly small. What does this have to do with Canadian law enforcement?

Chapter #3: BLM Chicago

BLM Chicago has one of the more substantial of the chapter websites.

However, the most recent article published at the website was published on December 23, 2020, and that is over a year ago.

Can this really be said to be a recent article?

This shows the most recent article published at Chicago BLM. 

Chapter #4: BLM DC

We could not find the website for BLM DC.

Chapter #5: BLM Denver

BLM Denver, which is called BLM5280 for some reason, has several pages, but its last post was on Jun 21 of, 2021, and they only have a few articles on the website. Furthermore, these articles show a counter, with one having 49 views and another having 33 views.

This is another BLM chapter in a location with a very low black population. Colorado has a black population that is around 3.9% of the overall population.

Chapter #6: BLM Detroit

The BLM Detroit chapter has four total articles, and the way the website is maintained makes it seem like the chapter is barely functional. Furthermore, we have hardly heard anything from BLM Detroit in the past.

Detroit is 80% black. However, BLM Detroit has a chapter that has a barely maintained website.

Chapter #7: BLM Lansing

BLM Lansing’s website has around four pages and is barely functional.

Chapter #8: BLM Memphis

We could not find the website for BLM Memphis.

Chapter #9: BLM Philadelphia

BLM Philadelphia’s website has about six pages and no articles.

Chapter #10: BLM South Bend

BLM South Bend’s website is “under construction.”

BLM is not a new thing, and there is no reason for a website to be under construction. One can add new parts to a website whenever one wishes. We take this as BLM South Bend has either ceased operation or is barely operational.

Chapter #11: BLM Nashville

We could not find the website for BLM Nashville.

A Roundup of the Analysis of Chapters Based Upon Their  Websites

Of the eleven BLM chapters, which BLM’s Impact Report said were fully functional, we found that DC, Memphis, South Bend, and Nashville appear to have ceased operations.

That leaves seven.

While we found the websites of the remaining seven, we found that neither Detroit nor Denver’s websites appeared to be maintained. Adding to this, Chicago had not published an article in over a year, and BLM’s Lansing’s website is so poorly maintained and just strange to use it is difficult to believe they are still a functional organization.

That leaves three BLM chapters that appeared to still be active, which are the following.

• BLM Boston
• BLM Canada
• BLM Philadelphia

We excluded BLM Utah from this analysis because BLM is not an officially BLM GNF approved chapter.

The Curious Story of BLM Louisville

This is a chapter that is not officially affiliated with BLM GNF. And we could not find their website, however, they were able to recently use $100,000 to bail out a black man named Quintez Brown who attempted murder of a mayoral candidate in Louisville, Craig Greenfield.

This is curious because it means that BLM Louisville is active, but has no website.

This comment about BLM is also of interest.

“I have never personally dealt with BLM Louisville and personally have found them to be [a] fraud,” Tamika Palmer wrote on Facebook. – PatriotPost

Why Doesn’t BLM Have Chapters in Cities With the Largest Black Populations in the US?

BLM should be most active in the cities with the highest percentage having black populations. This is where one would expect chapters, however of the active chapters, only Philadelphia meets this criterion. The cities with the highest black populations — Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Birmingham, East St Louis, DC, do not have BLM Chapters.

That is also odd. And it says something, but we are not sure what. Does BLM have a problem functioning in predominantly black cities? We know that BLM had major problems in Ferguson or East Saint Louis, and clashed with the organizers there.

Only Owning Real Estate in Canada?

BLM spent $8.1 million on purchasing a complex in Toronto, Canada. However, at the same time, BLM has no office in the US and not even a PO box. With such a small black population in Canada, and with cities in the US with such high black populations, why is the only BLM real estate that is either rented or owned in Toronto, Canada?

It seems that every time we analyze a different aspect of BLM, something else falls out that does not make sense. Furthermore, the $8.1 million is significantly more than is estimated to have gone to the BLM chapters.

Conclusion

The BLM chapter network is in serious disrepair. And an interesting question is will there be a BLM chapter network in the future.

A significant reason for this is that BLM GNF never shared much of the money with these chapters, leaving the chapters to fend for themselves for fundraising — however, when people donate, they tend to donate to BLM GNF. By not supporting their chapters, these chapters had unsustainable funding levels. All of this has been part of a multi-year debate between BLM GNF and the BLM chapters. We performed this analysis when we found out that BLM had a chapter in Utah, which did not compute.

A problem with trying to figure out the condition of the BLM chapters is that the BLM chapters do not announce when they have ceased operation, and they simply delete their websites, or their websites go into disrepair. BLM GNF wants to maintain the illusion that they still have a strong network of chapters. Therefore they are not going to announce that their chapter network is falling apart.

It only became apparent to us how much the BLM chapter network has declined after performing this analysis. Furthermore, it also means that BLM provided false information in their 2020 Impact Report, as they communicated in that report that they were actively supporting these chapters.