Chicago pastor slams BLM for not helping him save black lives: ‘If they exist, it’s only on paper’

For nearly 200 days, Rev. Corey B. Brooks, who for almost thirty years has led the fight against violence in the Windy City, has been sleeping in a tent on a rooftop on the South Side of Chicago to raise money for black youths. But despite multiple requests for a donation, the one group you’d expect to give to the cause — Black Lives Matter — has so far reportedly refused to help.

Brooks needs $35 million to build an 84,000-square-foot community center where youths can escape the gangs, get an education, learn skills, and find good jobs, and he has vowed he won’t come down until he secures it. The new center will be located across from the New Beginnings Church, which Brooks founded twenty years ago.

“We’re fighting to change the mindset,” Brooks told the New York Post’s Dana Kennedy. “We are about making people take responsibility for their actions and not blame others.”

After Black Lives Matter raked in $66 million in donations in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 death, Brooks had hoped the organization would lend a hand to his efforts, but he was — and remains — disappointed.

“At the end of 2020, I emailed the director of Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for the first time on the website where it says you can apply for donations,” Brooks said. “I kept emailing and asking: How do you go about trying to get funds for your organization from Black Lives Matter? I kept waiting for a human response or any response at all.”

“I tried again in the summer of 2021,” he continued. “I never heard anything back from anyone.”

The pastor pointed to a lack of structure within BLM as a big part of the problem.

“We were going to try a third time when we started hearing about all the problems they were having,” Brooks said. “My attorney and I looked into the possibility of taking over the organization but one of the biggest obstacles we encountered was that there was literally no one at the helm of it. There was no infrastructure.”

“There’s a Black Lives Matter chapter in Chicago but they’re like a secret,” he explained. “Nobody has seen them do any work for the community or has any data or has heard anything about them. So if they exist, it’s only on paper.”

BLM may be ducking Brooks’ pleas for assistance, but they have been front and center in Chicago for a nonprofit founded by a guy who repeatedly calls cops “pigs.”

As American Wire recently reported, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation donated $200,000 to Equity and Transformation (EAT), its founder, Richard Wallace is big on defunding the police.

EAT often promoted a group called Movement for Black Lives, which openly supports Assata Shakur, who is featured on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list.

“It makes me angry honestly, that people who supported Black Lives Matter were abused by an organization who gave money to people or organizations that aren’t doing any of the work needed in our communities,” Brooks told The Post. “Whenever people profit off black pain for their own gain that makes me angry. I’ve been saying for a long time that Black Lives Matter doesn’t benefit the black community in any way.”

As for Brooks, he will continue living on the roof, through the cold of winter and the heat of the coming summer, until he can give his community the center it so desperately needs.

“This new building will house all our programs, including our trade, school and entrepreneurial programs,” he said. “So far we’ve raised $`2 million — about 80 percent of which has come from small donors across America with the rest coming from Chicago and corporate donors.”

Those interested in contributing to Reverend Brooks’ cause can donate to the aptly-named and very worthy “Get Pastor Brooks Off the Roof” fund.

Melissa Fine

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