Black Lives Matter transferred millions of dollars to a Canadian charity run by the wife of its co-founder to purchase a mansion that used to serve as the headquarters of the Communist Party of Canada.
M4BJ is a non-profit based in Toronto that was set up in part by Janaya Khan. It bought the 10,000-square foot mansion for $6.3 million in July 2021, according to public records reviewed by the New York Post.
Khan is the wife of Patrisse Khan-Cullors, a self-avowed Marxist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Global Foundation Network.
Khan-Cullors resigned from the group last year after an investigation revealed that she had spent $3.2 million on homes in Georgia and Los Angeles. She allegedly denied the homes were purchased with BLM donations.
The purchase of the Toronto property, which is also called the Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism, drew concerns and criticism from within the organization.
Canadian BLM activist Sarah Jama tweeted, “For BLM Canada to take money from BLM Global Network for a building without consulting the community was unethical”. “For BLM Canada to refuse to answer questions from young Black organizers goes against the spirit of movement-building”.
Jama and another activist, Sahra Soudi, resigned earlier this month over the building’s funding.
According to a report in the Washington Examiner, two activists who were put in place to lead the organization after Khan-Cullors’ resignation left abruptly in September.
According to the New York Post, Makani Themba and Monifa Bandele said “that they didn’t know who was managing the group’s more than $66 million windfall from Thousand Currents, a non-profit that managed its donations”.
The money from Thousand Currents was transferred to BLMGNF in Oct. 2020, which was reported in public filings.
Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project of the National and Legal Policy Center, commented on the issue, saying “Unfortunately, this appears to be an epic abuse of public trust in which an entire movement’s resources are being squandered on the whims and financial mismanagement of one person and their inner circle of friends and family”.