The question emerging about Black Lives Matters organizations isn’t whether some of them are grifters. The question is whether any of them aren’t.
Case in point: Reverend Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson, the executive director of BLM in Oklahoma City, who collected well over five million dollars to run a bail fund. Prosecutors allege that more than half of that money ended up in Dickerson’s private accounts after an investigation that included the Department of Justice and the IRS. Dickerson appeared in federal court after the grand jury unsealed the indictment:
Dickerson’s statement claims that these kinds of allegations are common to those who do social-justice work. They are a lot more common to BLM orgs, and so is the pattern of where the money allegedly goes:
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 52-year-old Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson deposited at least $3.15 million in returned bail checks into her personal account from Black Lives Matter Oklahoma City’s account from June 2020 to at least October 2025.
The indictment alleges that Dickerson used the funds to pay for 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, and six real properties in Oklahoma City deeded in her own name or in the name Equity International, LLC, an entity she exclusively controlled.
The DOJ said that the indictment also alleges that Dickerson used interstate wire communications to submit two false annual reports to the Alliance for Global Justice on behalf of Black Lives Matter Oklahoma City.
Dickerson reported that she used Black Lives Matter Oklahoma City funds only for tax-exempt purposes, according to a news release. The DOJ said she did not disclose that she used funds for her personal benefit.
The grand jury charged the Reverend with 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. The alleged conversion of these funds to personal use will undoubtedly lead to a massive civil action from the IRS, and they may pursue tax evasion charges separately at some point. KOCO notes that each count of wire fraud carries a potential 20-year prison sentence, while the money-laundering counts could get as much as 10 years each. Unless Dickerson has a criminal record already, Dickerson’s probably looking at a few years in a minimum-security prison, unless she cooperates and coughs up the cash.
Or maybe the judge will get tough with Dickerson. The DoJ indictment alleges that this was a corrupt operation from its very start:
Despite the stated purpose of the money raised, and the terms and conditions of the grants, the Indictment alleges that beginning in June 2020 and continuing through at least October 2025, Dickerson embezzled funds from BLMOKC’s accounts for her personal benefit. The Indictment alleges Dickerson deposited at least $3.15 million in returned bail checks into her personal accounts, rather than into BLMOKC’s accounts.
“Beginning in June 2020” means immediately after the death of George Floyd at the end of May of the same year. If true, this was a grift from the very beginning.
That has been the pattern across BLM organizations, as Sean Patrick Cooper reported fourteen months ago at The Free Press. Money went to leadership as fast as it flowed from grants and donors, turning a cause celebre into a grift at an astonishing speed:
The latest proof point came earlier this month when Tyree Conyers-Page—a.k.a. Sir Maejor Page, the 35-year-old former leader of the BLM chapter of Greater Atlanta—was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for money laundering and wire fraud. Pocketing the $450,000 raised from 18,000 donors to “fight for George Floyd” and the “movement,” Page spent lavishly on himself, splurging on tailored suits, nightclub bar tabs, an evening with a prostitute, and, as he texted to a friend, “a big-ass cribo” that he bought in Ohio after he “won the lottery.”
For years, local chapters have fought national parent BLM organizations in disputes over who actually represents the movement and are thus the rightful heirs to tens of millions of dollars in donations. You’ll note that I mentioned parent organizations. There are actually two of them: BLM Global Network Foundation and BLM Grassroots. The latter was formed in 2019 as an umbrella organization of local chapters of the group and is co-directed by Melina Abdullah. Since then, media reports have accused Abdullah and other chapter leaders of using Grassroots’ coffers to pay for vacations to Jamaica and her own personal expenses. (She hasn’t been charged with a crime.)
Abdullah has denied the allegations, but at least $8.7 million in donations is unaccounted for.
The competing organization, BLM Global, followed the same grifter track:
As the national face of BLM, Cullors was suddenly in great demand. She inked a deal with Warner Bros. to create animated kids’ programming, documentaries, dramas, and comedies about structural racism and inequality—none of which were ever made. She and the foundation also spent a big chunk of those donations on an enviable real estate portfolio. They acquired a $6 million Los Angeles mansion, which Cullors used in early 2021 for a Biden inauguration party as well as her son’s birthday party. She and BLM Global paid $6.3 million for a mansion in Canada, which they named “the Wildseed Centre for Arts and Activism” (“a transfeminist, queer affirming space politically aligned with supporting Black liberation work across Canada”). They also dropped $3.2 million on four luxury properties, including a 3.2-acre estate in Georgia that boasted a runway for private aircraft. And BLM Global handed out money to a coterie of Cullors’ friends and relatives, including $778,000 for “services” to an arts group run by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’ son, and $1.6 million to a security firm owned by her brother Paul. The foundation also cut checks totaling $205,000 to a company run by Cullors and her spouse as well as a $211,000 payout to Asha Bandele, the friend who helped Cullors write her memoir.
Perhaps the grift track has now been closed. We shall see whether any other prosecutions will be on the horizon. We can expect to hear claims that the Trump administration is targeting BLM for its politics, but the previous prosecutions and exposures listed by Cooper took place under the Biden Regency, not Trump. This isn’t about politics as much as it is about shining a light on racketeering. Let’s see where the grifters go when the spotlight hits them next.
Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt movements and organizations like Black Lives Matter – and the progressive groups that fund and protect them.
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