BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors has made a rare public appearance in a performance art piece that involves a parade of women in white dresses bound together by their hair.
The California-born creator of the BlackLivesMatter hashtag led a procession of nine women as they walked from the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden to the Fowler Museum in a Los Angeles spectacle watched by thousands of people.
Known as Ori Whispers, the performance marked the opening of the museum’s exhibition centering on the Yoruba diaspora – people from Nigeria, Benin, and Togo in West Africa who have moved across the Atlantic to Brazil, Cuba and the US.
The museum described the ‘visually and spiritually dynamic procession’ on Saturday as ‘a celebration of Black femme Ori strength and power.’
In her Saturday performance piece, Cullors went barefoot and wore an off-white ankle-length dress with gauze sleeves as she led the procession of women, as they were each tied together by long black plaits of hair.
She looked expressionless as she walked with the other eight women trailing behind wearing brighter white dresses and crocs.
Ori is a Yoruba metaphysical concept tying together the themes of ‘consciousness, individuality, and spiritual intuition’ per the museum.
The museum’s new exhibit, called The House Was Too Small: Yoruba Sacred Arts from Africa and Beyond, features a multimedia installation by Cullors titled Free Us.
Cullors, 40, became a co-founder of BLM in 2013 before stepping down in 2021. The movement started in the courtyard of her Los Angeles home.
Now, Black Lives Matter’s national organization is at risk of going bankrupt after its finances plunged $8.5million into the red last year – while simultaneously handing multiple staff seven-figure salaries.
It comes as it emerged in May that 33 percent of Black Lives Matter’s accumulated donations of $90 million found its way to charitable causes, according to a report.
The group doled out around $30 million between 2020 and 2022, during which time it collected $90 million in donations as it promoted itself as the preeminent civil rights organization in the US.
Among the benefactors of BLM’s paltry donations were friends and family of Cullors, in particular her graffiti artist brother, Paul, who received $1.7 million in salary and contracts during that time period.
Cullors denied allegations of financial improprieties, saying that neither she nor anyone else in the BLM leadership misused donated money in an interview with AP.
However, she did acknowledge that BLM was ill-prepared to handle a tidal wave of contributions in the aftermath of protests over George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020.
She said the foundation was slow to build the necessary groundwork.
In the same month that the company’s finances were unearthed, Cullors was quietly let go from her Warner Bros TV deal after producing no content.
The artist signed the deal with the media giant in 2020 to much fanfare but it ended in secret in October 2022, it emerged on Friday.
‘The deal, unfortunately, did not result in any produced shows,’ a source told the New York Post.
Cullors claimed in January 2022 that she was working on a documentary about how reparations were similar to the idea of landback, where Native Americans got back their lands, and another about black social mobility.
She also reportedly had scripted series about marijuana and black women leaders, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Black Lives Matter says it ‘builds power to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe’ and it aims to persuade governments to ‘defund the police’.
Earlier this year, Cullors’ cousin Keenan Anderson, 31, went into cardiac arrest and died in hospital after being tasered by police. Cullors said he was ‘killed’ by LAPD.
Anderson caused a car crash before standing in the middle of Venice Boulevard ‘behaving erratically’ and trying to run away from officers carrying out a DUI investigation in January, Los Angeles police say.
He left behind a five-year-old son, and lawyers acting on behalf of the child filed a $50 million claim for damages against the city.
