We all remember the summer of 2020 when Black Lives Matter launched into the mainstream of cultural discourse. It was a rally cry at protests and demonstrations around the world, and posted all over sporting events. But we also remember the riots resulting in property destruction, injury, and an attack on police. So the movement started, but what have they been up to since? Recently, there have been many questions about their leadership, tax-exempt status, and donations. What have they been doing with all of the money raised?

On this episode, Mike Gonzalez joins us to discuss what we know and most importantly what we don’t know about the Black Lives Matter organization. He literally wrote the book on BLM, and the Marxist revolution they desire.

Tim Doescher: From The Heritage Foundation, I'm Tim Doescher and this is Heritage Explains.

Crowd: Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter.

Doescher: Remember Black Lives Matter, or BLM?

Crowd: Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter.

Doescher: Of course you do. Summer of 2020 wasn't that long ago.

Crowd: I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

Doescher: Massive protests in major cities, demonstrations, riots, looting. It was a sight to behold. People closed down streets. They closed down businesses. All to protest after the killing of George Floyd. And of course, this at a BLM protest in Minneapolis.

Speaker: Feel your anger fully. Be mad. Be mad.

Crowd: Yeah! Yeah!

Speaker: Because your anger is justified.

Crowd: Yeah!

Speaker: Build barricades. Burn precincts. Reappropriate what they've stolen from you for thousands of generations!

Crowd: Yeah!

Speaker: Power to the looters. Power to the rioters. Say his name! Say his name!

>>> BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution

Doescher: Build barricades. Burn precincts. Wow. Hard to forget. But that's just one aspect of BLM. What have they been doing since these protests, riots and seeing it posted on nearly every sporting event you watched? Well, recently we've learned that since the founders have stepped down from leadership, we still don't know who's running it. And they still refuse to account for some $60 million on hand. That's a lot of money to be unaccounted for. So what are they up to? Well, in spite of organizational challenges, they are still attempting to implement their radical agenda of critical race theory, socialism, queer and trans-affirming, and fake U.S. history to our children. But again, who is behind this? How is it organized.

Doescher: On this episode our friend, Mike Gonzalez, joins us to unravel this twisted web and try to make some sense of what's going on with BLM. He recently released a book documenting the rise of BLM and the Marxist revolution they continue to push for. So if anyone can make sense of this it's him, but first this.

>>> Tired of hoax stories. Fed up with toxic partisan coverage. There is a better option. The Daily Signal delivers news that matters to you on culture, politics and current events. Stay up to date on the real news of the day. Subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts because you can in handle the truth.

Doescher: Mike Gonzalez, thank you so much for being here this week. I'm really excited to get into this thing here because as I've spent more and more time with you this year, I realize that you really are a defined leading voice in terms of Black Lives Matter around this nation and it is so valuable, especially with what we're seeing right now. So thanks for being here.

Mike Gonzalez: Well Tim, thanks a lot for having me on. Look, I was so concerned about Black Lives Matter that I wrote a book about them in 2020 published last year. BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution.

Doescher: And by the way, we're going to link to that in the shown notes folks, the Amazon site. So you can go on and buy the book and support Mike and all the efforts that he's doing here. But go ahead, Mike. Sorry to interrupt you.

Gonzalez: No, that's all right. I know we're going to get into the allegations of financial corruption of Black Lives Matter at the organization. But the important thing to know is that they have changed our lives. They have completely changed our lives. After the demonstrations and the riots, over 600 riots in which Black Lives Matter was involved in 2020, critical race theory and an attempt to change the American way of life has come into all aspects of our lives. K through 12, the military, houses of worship, even sports leagues. And that is all the direct result of the incredible destabilization that we saw in 2020.

Doescher: Let me just stop you there because really just thinking back to that moment. COVID was happening. Everything was happening. A lot of things up in the air and there was a lot of stuff boiling, and it was this pot of just boiling water that was just flowing up and up and up and up and up and up. And then all of a sudden you start seeing these riots happening. You said it has changed us forever. It felt back then hopeless. It felt like we had no way to push back against this. And now you've mentioned though that that has changed our lives, but we also have seen that we have pushed back against the Marxist propaganda that they were pushing, trying to take advantage of the racial stress that they saw.

Gonzalez: Yeah. And by the way, I don't think they have changed us forever. That is still to be decided because the American people starting in late 2020, and then in full force in 2021 have said no, this is a grassroots effort against critical race theory, against the indoctrination of children, against having struggle sessions in places of work, against the national security threat that it is to ask cadets and servicemen to read Kendi or Robin DiAngelo or other works of critical race theory. So yeah, I think that the American people, there's an open revolt by the American people, a grassroots effort to say, no. No, you're not. Americans love their places of work. They love their country and they love their children. And these are three things that have been affected by this. But you're absolutely right, by the way, in 2020 we had a dual pandemic. We had a virus that escaped apparently the lab in Wuhan. And we had another virus that escaped the university's critical race theory. And this has happened before.

Gonzalez: In Salem, Massachusetts the witch trials took place. All these sightings of witches took place after the town of Salem had gone through a smallpox pandemic. You know, pandemics create the ground for ass hysteria to take hold. And we saw that in 2020.

Doescher: And we're seeing this stuff come out now. BLM is currently, you know, they've got 60 million plus. Who knows how much? They have got all this money in the bank. Allegedly they're leaderless. We don't know who's leading them. The three women that started BLM are now off doing their own thing. My first question is how did they get 60 million to begin with?

Gonzalez: They did not get 60 million. They got 90 million.

Doescher: Wow.

Gonzalez: That's what they said in their 2020 impact report which was published in March 2021 if I remember correctly. And it was quoted heavily from Patrisse Cullors, one of the three women that founded Black Lives Matter as you said. The report, Black Lives Matter own report said it had raised $93 million in 2020. By the way, I always make it clear and let me take the moment now to make it clear that when we talk about Black Lives Matter, there are at least three components.

Gonzalez: One is the concept which I think is unimpeachable. I say Black Lives Matter. Obviously all lives matter, but what's important to affirm that Black Lives Matter because the history is so, we all know the history. I don't even need to explain why it's important to say Black Lives Matter.

Doescher: Sure.

Gonzalez: Then there's the movement. I guess people who demonstrated, who found the video of the death of George Floyd harrowing, which it was. It was a tragedy. And then there is the organizations and their founders. The media only wants to talk about the first two components, the concept in the movement. They never talk about the organizations. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation.

>>> BLM: A New Marxist Revolution

Doescher: Okay. Let me just stop you right there because this is very, very important that we define exactly what this is. They're registered as a 501(c)(3). Is that correct?

Gonzalez: As of a late 2020.

Doescher: Okay. A 501(c)(3) is a non, supposedly it's tax exempt.

Gonzalez: Right.

Doescher: You raise your money, but you are not allowed to take a stance politically on things. You're allowed to support ideas.

Gonzalez: Right.

Doescher: You're allowed to educate people.

Gonzalez: Right.

Doescher: But you're not allowed to take political stances on that. So that's what BLMGNF was founded on. That's correct.

Gonzalez: When you get this tax status 501(c)(3) you cut a deal with society. You have to reveal. You have to have a 990. Every 501(c)(3) organization has a 990 which says what is doing with this money? Who gets what? And Black Lives Matter doesn't have a 990. Wow.

Doescher: Wait. So if I go on and look up for their form 990, which you can do. You can search any nonprofits form 990 online. It's very easy to do. You can't find theirs? How do they get away with that?

Gonzalez: Not for 2020 it doesn't. And that's why the state of California has told BLMGNF that it's tax exempt status is on hold and it cannot raise funds until it submits delinquent filings, which is 990s.

Doescher: Wow.

Gonzalez: Now, this is important because the state of California, when it applied for 501(c)(3) status, BLMGNF used an Oakland address. They all come from the Bay Area.

Doescher: Right.

Gonzalez: Or from Los Angeles. So it really is based loosely in Oakland. It's a web, right.

Doescher: Right.

Gonzalez: It's a global network foundation. It is based all over the world. But the address that it used in that filing was Oakland, California.

Doescher: Let's put this on hold for a second because we will get into this a little bit more in a second. So they raise all this money, 93 million or whatever. We're seeing 60 million in the bank.

Gonzalez: 60 million. That's how much it said it had on its balance sheet.

Doescher: Right.

Gonzalez: In that filing.

Doescher: So let's say they spend $33 million. What are they spending this money on? What are they doing with this money? Are they growing the organization? Are they branching out into things. I know you talk about in your recent piece how they're affecting our children in school. So clearly they're doing something with this money. Go into that a little bit.

Gonzalez: Well, BLM at School, which is the sister organization of Black Lives Matter, is exactly the same thing. Which is the one that has the BLM at schools Week of Action which just passed, and which is the one that distributes educational resources and curricular resources to the country's 14,000 school districts. It uses a lot of money. How much money did BLM at School get from BLMGNF? That's a good question. Look, I think-

Doescher: But really it's safe to say that they're sending curricula around to all of our school districts, and then the school districts are in the position where we implement this or we don't. So our kids are being potentially educated by BLM.

Gonzalez: Well, we just saw the video, the TikTok video of little pre-K children here in Washington DC marching around their classes saying Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter. There's no way for these pre-K children to understand what these organizations are about. They have never heard the word Marx. They don't know that Black Lives Matter at School still has it on its website that the family must be abolished. Which BLMGNF had on its website on the Andrew Olivastro, a Heritage Foundation colleague and I wrote about it.

Doescher: Yeah.

Gonzalez: And it was read by over a million people. And all of a sudden they purged their website of, all of a sudden there are 13 principles went down to 12. Not in BLM at Schools. In BLM at Schools they forgot to airbrush that. They still have abolish the family. So these little children do not know that Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors say they're trained Marxists because they were trained by Marxists.

Doescher: Right.

Gonzalez: They were trained in Marist organizations, created by Marxism and followers of Antonio Gramsci about how to overtake American society. And they don't have any way to know this ideological baggage.

Doescher: Yeah. And you're saying overtake American society in their 13 guiding principles that you reference in this piece here, they've got everything from globalism to queer affirming to trans-affirming. I mean this is way more than Black Lives Matter.

Gonzalez: Look, Alicia Garza goes around and says, "We have to dismantle the organizing principle of society. We have to dismantle how we've organized this society." This is social justice. This is a totalizing goal.

Doescher: Yeah.

Gonzalez: And what is included in that organizing principle? Well, she also says that capitalism is racist and black lives cannot matter under capitalism, which is a falsehood by the way. Capitalism is a color blind mechanism. It's actually free markets. Capitalism is itself a Leftist term. Free markets means that if I build a better mousetrap, it doesn't matter if I am purple. That better mousetrap is going to make me rich.

Doescher: Yeah.

Gonzalez: That's what free markets means.

Doescher: Well Mike, your piece is fantastic. Black Lives Matter continues to harm America. Money problems aside, we look to the core of what this group is pushing and it's amazing. And I'll let you finish here wrapping us up here. But you say thousands of people continue to suffer from the mayhem BLM has created. I think that is so compelling, Mike.

Gonzalez: Well, look at the spike in the murder rate. Two recent studies, I mean recent like in the last three months, have demonstrated that there is such a thing as the Ferguson effect. That is police pull back. They're not as proactive in areas where there have been demonstrations and riots against the police. We knew this. There's also the rogue prosecutors which Heritage has done so much great work about.

Gonzalez: That prosecutors have been elected with money donated by George Soros, by the way, for their campaigns, have been elected in many cities since Black Lives Matter came out to basically not prosecute anybody. If you go to the Black Lives Matter website you will see they continue to want to not just abolish the police. They want to abolish the prison system and the courts.

Doescher: Yeah.

Gonzalez: No society can survive this way. Only chaos results from abolishing the police, the court system and the prison system. We humans need to have law. We need to have order. Without it government is not providing. The bargain is that we give up some natural rights or a part of our natural rights in order for the government to establish order and keep order. If the government is not establishing order as we're seeing in these cities, so that is one way that Americans are suffering today because of the mayhem BLM created with the 630 riots in 2020.

Gonzalez: But there's also the indoctrination that we're seeing. The critical race theory going into the K through 12 schools. We see what is happening in our places of work where workers are being submitted to struggle sessions, reeducation sessions, to change how they think because there's this idea that we have unconscious bias which is unproven.

Doescher: Yeah.

Gonzalez: So I think that even though they're down now because people finally beginning to report about the allegations of corporate corruption, BLM continues to be a full force in our lives today.

Doescher: Yeah. Well Mike, you're handling it. You're tracking it. We really appreciate you doing this. Going around the country educating people. And you know what? People are learning. People are. We saw that happen in Virginia this year and we're going to continue to see it as more and more people come awake to this, Mike. So thank you so much for doing this.

Gonzalez: Thank you, Tim. Thanks a lot for having this.

Doescher: Well, Mike Gonzalez is on the cutting edge of this issue. And because of his efforts, we have a clearer picture of how the Left is weaponizing their ideas against our liberty and way of life. Thanks, Mike.

Doescher: Now I'd like to challenge everyone to purchase his book, BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. Let's send the Left a message that we're on to them and their plot to change America. In fact, the first five people to leave comments, rate the show five stars and send us an email at [email protected], they're going to get a free copy of the book. So get on it, Get writing. Get messaging and leave us a comment. We'll see you next episode.

Heritage Explains is brought to you by more than half a million members of The Heritage Foundation. It is produced by Michelle Cordero and Tim Doescher with editing by John Popp.