Changes

BLM was founded in 2013 by three cultural marxists: [[Alicia Garza]], [[Patrisse Cullors]], and Opal Tometi. Garza is an old [[Van Jones]] cohort from the Marxist STORM organization in the Bay Area in the 1990s. In 2015, Alicia Garza wrote:

{{quotebox|"When I use Assata [Shakur]'s powerful demand in my [[Community organizing|organizing]] work, I always begin by sharing where it comes from, sharing about Assata’s significance to the Black Liberation Movement, what its political purpose and message is, and why it’s important in our context."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Garza|first1=Alicia|title=A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement|url=http://www.thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/|website=The Feminist Wire|publisher=|accessdate=}}</ref>}}

[[Assata Shakur]] is the former "queen" of the Black Liberation Army (BLA) terrorist group, who was convicted of the first-degree murder of a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973. She was convicted of [[murder]] and seven other [[felon]]ies. While serving a life sentence, she escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in 1979. She was granted political asylum in [[Cuba]] in 1984 where she has lived ever since, despite US government efforts to have her extradited. She is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, under her maiden name [[Joanne Deborah Chesimard]]. BLM founders openly admit to being "trained Marxists".<ref>https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1273739801464725504</ref>

Garza is a black separatist and more recently was affiliated with the Marxist [[Freedom Road Socialist Organization]] that wants to carve out an independent [[nation-state]] in the Bay Area.<ref>[https://www.periscope.tv/w/1zqKVljlzyDJB ''Black Lives Matter Unmasked''], Lee Stanahan, 2020.</ref>