Black Lives Matter (BLM) Grassroots, a BLM division in favor of Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel, is run by a radical professor and activist who teaches at a taxpayer-funded California University and once defended notorious anti-semite Louis Farrakhan.
Dr. Melina Abdullah is the executive director of BLM Grassroots and a co-founder of Black Lives Matter’s Los Angeles chapter, the BLM grassroots website says. She is a professor of Pan-African studies at California State University Los Angeles, and a “womanist scholar-activist” who was appointed to the Los Angeles County Humans Relations Commission, her faculty bio states. (RELATED: BLM Groups Express Solidarity With Hamas)
Black Lives Matter Grassroots tweeted a lengthy statement Monday coming out in favor of Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel and comparing Palestinians to black Americans.
“Black Lives Matter Grassroots stands in solidarity with our Palestinian family who are currently resisting 57 years of settler colonialism and apartheid. As Black people continue to fight to end militarism and mass incarceration in our own communities, let us understand the resistance in Palestine as an attempt to tear down the gates of the world’s largest open air prison,” the statement reads.
“The war on the Palestinian people must cease. We call on the United States to immediately stop funding war and redirect $4 billion in annual spending from the Israeli military,” the statement adds. BLM Grassroots did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots
Statement in #Solidarity with the People of #Palestine. pic.twitter.com/BgsQBAZdis— BLM Grassroots (@blmgrassroots) October 10, 2023
Hamas’ assault on Israel has claimed more than 1,200 civilian lives including 14 American citizens, President Joe Biden confirmed during a Tuesday speech. Roughly 20 Americans are missing in Israel after Hamas’ invasion although the number of American hostages taken by Hamas remains unclear, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters Tuesday.
Hamas killed roughly 260 people at a music festival and witnesses have described piles of executed civilians on the street following the massacre. Israeli soldiers have found babies beheaded by Hamas terrorists and witnesses have spoken about butchered bodies left in the wake of Hamas’ terrorist invasion. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: ‘Babies Being Taken By Terrorists’: Israelis React To Hamas’ ‘Shocking’ Surprise Attack)
Abdullah’s personal feed on X, formerly known as Twitter, features reposts of recent. statements in support of Palestine and against Israel, including a statement from Democratic Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, who called for ending U.S. support for Israel in the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attacks.
Abdullah once defended Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a black supremacist who has a decades-long history of anti-semitic remarks and conspiracies about Jewish people.
We should all be outraged by the banning of Minister @LouisFarrakhan from Instagram and Facebook. Loving Black people and wanting freedom and self-determination for us does not constitute “Black supremacy.” In a country built on our backs there can be no “Black supremacy.”
— Melina Abdullah (@DocMellyMel) May 4, 2019
“We should all be outraged by the banning of Minister @LouisFarrakhan from Instagram and Facebook. Loving Black people and wanting freedom and self-determination for us does not constitute ‘Black supremacy.’ In a country built on our backs there can be no ‘Black supremacy,'” Abdullah tweeted in 2019.
Abdullah was born in East Oakland and her father was a self-proclaimed trotskyist, according to an LA Weekly profile of her and other BLM activists in Los Angeles. Abdullah graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with a PhD in political science and she has received multiple academic awards for her work, her faculty bio states.
“Professor Abdullah is a leader in the fight for Ethnic Studies in the K-12 and university systems and was a part of the historic victory that made Ethnic Studies a requirement in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She was among the original group of organizers that convened to form Black Lives Matter and continues to serve as a Los Angeles chapter lead and contributes to the national leadership,” her bio reads. California State University Los Angeles and its Pan-African studies department did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
Her daughter, Thandiwe Abdullah, who identifies with “they/them” pronouns, created the BLM Youth Vanguard wing and helped launch the BLM in schools campaign, her bio states.
Abdullah was arrested during a May 2018 Los Angeles Police Commission meeting for allegedly grabbing an officer’s arm when a commotion broke out after an activist threw powder at then-police chief Charlie Beck, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Los Angeles city attorney’s office later charged Abdullah with four counts of unlawful assembly, one count of disturbing a police meeting and one count of interfering with a public meeting related to alleged misconduct at prior police commission meetings, the outlet reported.
The charges against Abdullah were dropped in February 2019 after she came to an agreement with prosecutors on guidelines surrounding her conduct at police commission meetings, NBC Los Angeles reported. BLM later accused the Los Angeles Police Department in October 2021 of swatting Abdullah on three separate occasions.
Melina Abdullah has publicly called for defunding the police, reparations for black Americans and the impeachment of the conservative Supreme Court justices who overturned race-based college admissions in June.
In April 2021, Abdullah led a protest outside then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s home calling for the Los Angeles Police Department to be defunded.
“He continues to feed a rotten system of policing,” Abdullah told a Fox 11 Los Angeles reporter outside the protest while wearing a “defund the police” t-shirt. “Abolition means two things: It means upending unjust systems. The system of policing that hails from slave-catching is absolutely unjust,” she added. “Abolishing the police means enabling us to invest those dollars in the things that actually keep us safe.”
She also advocated against the construction of a new police training facility in Atlanta, commonly derided by left-wing activists as a “cop city.” Dozens of left-wing activists have been arrested and charged with domestic terrorism as a result of a years-long, often violent activist campaign against the training facility.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots was characterized in June 2021 as the “home” of BLM’s “organizing work” with activists spread around the world. The grassroots wing of BLM organized rallies in the summer of 2020 for defunding the police and worked with local chapters to pressure elected officials into resignation, according to a 2020 BLM impact report.
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BLM Grassroots is embroiled in a legal battle against the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the foundation that runs Black Lives Matter’s national organization.
BLM Grassroots filed a lawsuit against the BLM Global Network for allegedly siphoning $10 million in donor funds to a consultant for personal gain. The lawsuit was dismissed in June 2022 and the BLM Global Network subsequently released an external audit of its finances in an attempt to disprove the allegations. BLM has accused Abdullah and BLM grassroots of using the allegations to create media attention.
BLM is now suing BLM Grassroots for the legal fees accrued by the lawsuit. Abdullah wrote an article for LA Progressive on Oct. 6th accusing the BLM Global Network of “stealing” the organization’s resources.
Abdullah did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.