In September, the fatal shooting of a black man by a police officer in Charlotte, North Carolina, was followed by claims the man was unarmed and that the shooting was racially motivated—that the man was killed because he was black. Protests began almost immediately, with the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the forefront.

These escalated into violent riots, with injuries to police officers, vehicles destroyed and looting. It turned out that the man was armed with a handgun after all and that police had told him to drop his weapon, as verified by witnesses. And agitators ignored the fact that the police officer who shot the man is black.

But what exactly is “Black Lives Matter”? Who is behind it? Is it really a spontaneous movement or is something else at work?

Accuracy in Media reports: “The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) casts itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner city frustration, but is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded communist/socialist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades . . .

“BLM launched in 2013 with a Twitter hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, after neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman was acquitted in the Trayvon Martin killing. Radical Left activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi claim credit for the slogan and hashtag. Following the Michael Brown shooting in August 2014, Dream Defenders, an organization led by Working Families Party (ACORN) activist and Occupy Wall Street anarchist Nelini Stamp, popularized the phrase ‘Hands Up—Don’t Shoot!’ which has since become BLM’s widely recognized slogan. Garza, Cullors and Tometi all work for front groups of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), one of the four largest radical Left organizations in the country . . .

“FRSO/BLM organizations are generously supported by a universe of wealthy foundations” (James Simpson, “Reds Exploiting Blacks: The Roots of Black Lives Matter,” aim.org, Jan. 12, 2016). The astonishing report goes on to give a lot more details on this background.

The Black Lives Matter Twitter feed has shown photos of activists with shirts saying “Assata Taught Me.” As Katie Pavlich notes at Townhall.com: “They’re referring to infamous cop killer Assata Shakur . . . who shot and killed a New Jersey State Trooper back in 1973 . . . [She] escaped and has been a fugitive in Cuba. She’s also on the FBI’s most wanted terrorism list.

“BLM glorifies Shakur as a hero and uses her writings and materials during training sessions . . . ‘At a recent event for female bloggers, BlackLivesMatter leaders had a crowd of thousands repeating lines from a letter written by Shakur that include an explicit reference to the Communist Manifesto’” (“Exposing the Black Lives Matter Movement for What It Is: Promotion of Cop Killing,” Sept. 2, 2015).

On the “Guiding Principles” page of BLM’s website (blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles), we find this objective stated under “Black Villages”: “We are committed to disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, and especially ‘our’ children to the degree that mothers, parents and children are comfortable.”

Other statements on the same page proclaim their support for other leftist causes that in previous years would’ve been considered anathema to the black community: “We are committed to fostering a queer-affirming network” . . . “We are committed to embracing and making space for trans brothers and sisters to participate and lead. We are committed to being self-reflexive and doing the work required to dismantle cis-gender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women . . .”

So there you have it. A radical leftist, pro-communist organization that lionizes cop killers and aims to destroy the nuclear family and replace it with collective community parenting. This organization is not truly about helping the plight of inner city blacks. It is about using them as pawns—stirring them and many others into a frenzy to destabilize the country in order to advance the radical left agenda. (Sources: Various news agencies, Accuracy in Media, Townhall.com.)