FACT BRIEF

Does a 2015 video show a Black Lives Matter cofounder calling to ‘end the imperialist project that’s called Israel’?

Monday, June 7, 2021

By Jacob Alabab-Moser

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YES

A video of a 2015 panel at Harvard Law School features Patrisse Cullors, a cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement. The video was posted in 2015, according to the date on the YouTube page. She spoke about the importance of supporting pro-Palestinian activists, given both movements’ opposition to U.S. government-funded militarization. She said, “if we don’t step up boldly and courageously to end the imperialist project that's called Israel, we're doomed.”

Cullors had visited Palestine as part of a delegation organized by Dream Defenders, a Florida-based grassroots organization with an “abolitionist” stance on global issues.

Cullors resigned in May 2021 as executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation in order to focus on book and television projects, according to the Associated Press.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School Globalizing Ferguson: Racialized policing and international resistance panel recording

Dream Defenders 2016 #DDPALESTINE delegation

Dream Defenders Ideology

AP News BLM's Patrisse Cullors to step down from movement foundation

Patrisse Cullors About Patrisse Cullors

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