The founder of a Black Lives Matter chapter said he left the organization after learning the “ugly truth” about the group’s political priorities.
Rashad Turner, the president and executive director of Minnesota Parent Union, said in a YouTube video that he founded a Black Lives Matter chapter in St. Paul, Minn. in 2015 because he “believed the organization stood for exactly what the name implies — black lives do matter.”
“However, after a year on the inside, I learned they had little concern for rebuilding black families,” he explained.
The BLM organization proved it did not care about “improving the quality of education for students” when it “publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers’ union,” Turner said.
BLM’s proposed moratorium on charter and private schools would “create barriers to a better education for children,” he explained.
“I was an insider in Black Lives Matter and I learned the ugly truth — the moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the black family,” Turner said. “I resigned from Black Lives Matter after a year and a half. But I didn’t quit working to improve black lives and access to a great education.”
BLM has faced heavy criticism in recent weeks from its own members.
Just last week, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Patrisse Cullors, stepped down from her position amidst controversy over her purchase of several luxury properties.
“If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” Hawk Newsome, the head of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, which is not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, said at the time. “It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement.”
