A complete accounting of every dollar raised by Shaun King throughout the Black Lives Matter Movement

18 min readDec 26, 2015

Yesterday, on Christmas Day, I received a message from CNN’s Sara Sidner, who works closely with Don Lemon, that she is helping lead a story about how I have misappropriated funds from the Black Lives Matter movement. Here it is:

First off, to receive a message like that on the middle of Christmas Day pretty much ruined the day for my entire family. I spent the rest of the day and night (my first day off with my family in months) strategizing with friends, family, and advisors on how we could best respond to this foolishness. Before you say, “Shaun, don’t respond, you’ve said and done enough,” STOP.

These lies are doing VERY REAL DAMAGE to my name, to my reputation, to my wife and kids as people ask them about this BS, and to the families I’ve helped raise money for as they continue to have to waste their time talking about this. We are actively in the process of planning defamation lawsuits against every person and outlet who has egregiously reported that I have done anything wrong with funds in this movement. We were going to release a full report in January, but have opted to go ahead and do this now.

I have not misappropriated, misspent, or mishandled a single penny from the Black Lives Matter movement. Period. This is a complete fabrication that was first started by white supremacists and ultra conservatives soon after Mike Brown was murdered. It has since been picked up by other outlets who will do anything for clicks and eyeballs and refuse to actually investigate the truth.

The video below is conservative superhero Glenn Beck from a year ago. Even back then they were attacking my fundraising for the families because they knew how effective it was. Here, Glenn Beck is already advancing the lie that families we raised funds for were being duped by our efforts — in spite of the fact that no family in this movement has ever said such a thing.

Watch what they say here:

When they saw that this line of attack was effective and that people were willing to believe it, they haven’t let up since.

Below is a full accounting of every single dollar I’ve raised since the week Mike Brown was murdered. On some of these I was the primary promoter and on others I was secondary, or even just played a small role.

Since August of 2014, I’ve raised or helped raise: $732,181.83.

It’s worth noting that George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson raised over $1,000,000 online with minimal effort and little scrutiny.

In partnership with Attorney Ben Crump, who represented each of the following families affected by police violence, we raised funds to provide immediate financial assistance to the families (or survivors if they lived).

Mind you, when I say I “raised funds” what I am saying here is that I served as a promoter of online fundraisers that were managed and supervised by other people.

Attorney Benjamin Crump, Attorney Walter Madison, and Adner Marcelin have confirmed this privately and publicly over and over and over again.

For questions about the following fundraisers, please contact Adner Marcelin from the Parks/Crump law office @ adnermarcelin@parkscrump.com.

The following is a direct quote from the Law Offices of Parks & Crump:

As to the following fundraisers listed below, we can confirm that Shaun King never had access to these funds at any time. The funds reported below were transferred directly into our client’s accounts through probate courts, or through accounts set up by each of the client’s listed below. Specifically, Shaun helped these families by spreading their stories on his platform (on his own accord), to which a significant amount of contributions came in.
The families and our firm remains appreciative of his generous efforts. We hope this helps clarify things concerning the clients we represent.
Mike Brown: $280,000
Tamir Rice 1: $60,000
Tamir Rice Amazon Wish List: $5,000
Tamir Rice 2: $30,000
Monroe Bird: $35,100
Corey Jones: $10,520

At no time did I ever have access to any of these funds. I never received a single dime as compensation for raising the funds and never expected anything in return. I pushed hard for each of these families so that they could have some tangible relief during the most difficult time of their lives.

Mike Brown: $280,000

I did not set up this fundraiser or ever have access to these funds. I did not have usernames or passwords for this fundraiser. I did not have access to the bank accounts attached to it. I was simply a promoter of the fundraiser and advocate for this family and their efforts. I was not compensated in any way for it.

This was the first time I helped raise funds for anyone during the Black Lives Matter movement. At the time, I hardly knew who was who, but thousands of us gave and promoted this fundraiser very aggressively with the hope that it would help Mike Brown’s family in the wake of losing their son to police violence.

For questions about the following fundraiser, please contact Adner Marcelin from the Parks/Crump law office @ adnermarcelin@parkscrump.com.

First Fundraiser for the family of Tamir Rice: $60,000

(It has been erroneously reported over and over again that we did this fundraiser without permission from the family. Tamir Rice’s uncle, who I was told was speaking for the family in the week after his death, specifically told activist Tory Russell (from Hands Up United) and I that the family needed help and that we had his full permission to do this fundraiser. Attorney Crump confirmed here that all of the funds were given to the family.

I never had access to these funds for a single moment. I did not have access to the bank accounts attached to it. I was not compensated in any way for it.

Here, a man asked Attorney Crump if the fundraiser that was set up was legitimate, and he confirmed that it was. It didn’t matter, though, the story that it wasn’t continues anyway. The facts clearly don’t matter here.

Amazon Wish List for Family of Tamir Rice: $5,000

For questions about the following fundraiser, please contact Cleveland attorney Walter Madison @: walter@waltermadison.com

Activist Feminista Jones, in partnership with Cleveland attorney Walter Madison, set up an Amazon Wish List for the Rice family. We pushed hard until every single item was purchased off of the wish list. Even then, people were saying that we were having the items sent to our own homes. I did not set up this campaign or ever have access to this Amazon account. I did not have usernames or passwords for this campaign. I was not compensated in any way for it.

Here is Samaria Rice (Tamir’s mother) thanking us for our efforts.

Second Fundraiser for Family of Tamir Rice: $30,000

For questions about the following fundraiser, please contact Adner Marcelin from the Parks/Crump law office @ adnermarcelin@parkscrump.com.

A new fundraiser was set up for the Rice family. I did not set it up, have access to it, or to the funds, but hundreds of people began tweeting and questioning why I was stealing money from the Rice family — even finding ways to harass Tamir’s mother about it. Attorney Crump was then forced to write this tweet to confirm that it was legit. By this point, the lies were steady and ridiculous. The family received these funds and have used them to move into a new home and support their advocacy efforts.

Monroe Bird: $35,100

For questions about the following fundraiser or statements from the family, please contact Adner Marcelin from the Parks/Crump law office @ adnermarcelin@parkscrump.com.

Monroe Bird, who was a great kid and was breaking no laws, was shot from behind in his own neighborhood by a security guard. It paralyzed Monroe and his insurance company refused to pay for his medical care. Forced to bring him home, we raised money for a bed and other medical care for him. His family received every single dollar that was raised. Unfortunately, Monroe died a month later, in great part because he was denied the proper rehab he deserved.

Corey Jones: $10,520

For questions about the following fundraiser or statements from the family, please contact Adner Marcelin from the Parks/Crump law office @ adnermarcelin@parkscrump.com.

Corey, as you may remember, was a church musician who was shot and killed by police on the side of a Florida highway when his car broke down. We raised funds to support his funeral and other expenses.

Radazz Hearns: $11,853

For questions about the following fundraiser or statements from the family, please contact attorney Sam Anyan @: anyans@wnwlaw.com

Attorney Sam Anyan is a great man and attorney who stepped up to represent 14 year old Radazz Hearns who was shot 7 times by police in New Jersey. Forced to recover at home, his family needed basic help for him to be comfortable so his attorney started this GoFundMe and we pushed it hard.

Here is a statement from Attorney Sam Anyan:

In regards to Radazz Hearns, Mr. King reached out to us to find out how he could help. He retweeted a link to a GoFundMe account that was set up by the family to help pay for medical expenses. Mr. King never had access to the funds.

Attorney Todd Rutherford is one of my heroes. He is one of the best attorneys in South Carolina and is also the democratic leader of the South Carolina State House. Todd was also very close friends and colleagues with Pastor Clementa Pinckney of Emanuel AME who was killed earlier this year alongside 8 others.

Todd is representing two people in South Carolina that I have helped raise funds for. As always, I received zero compensation, never had access to these funds, and just did it for the love. Attorney Rutherford stated,

Shaun was an essential force behind each of these fundraisers, but never, for a single moment, had access to the funds, the accounts, or the websites that my clients used to raise the funds. He did the work for the love of it. I was honestly surprised to see how much time and energy and effort Shaun put into those fundraisers. He never asked for or even hinted at receiving anything in return.

Spring Valley High School Victim: $45,792

For questions about the following fundraiser or statements from the family, please contact South Carolina attorney Todd Rutherford @: trutherford@sc.rr.com

Like people all over the nation, I was disgusted when Officer Ben Fields violently assaulted this teenage girl at Spring Valley High School. When we learned that this young girl was in need and saw how many people wanted to help her, we promoted this fundraiser heavily.

Bree Newsome: $125,705

For questions about the following fundraiser, please contact South Carolina attorney Todd Rutherford @: trutherford@sc.rr.com

As with every other fundraiser, I never received a single dime of what was raised to support Bree Newsome. Bree is an American Hero and is someone I admire greatly. In addition to encouraging people to give to her fundraiser privately, I shared the information to her fundraiser publicly for days. Privately, just minutes after she was arrested, I helped secure Todd Rutherford as her attorney and he actually paid her initial bail costs, and that of a friend who was arrested with her, himself that same day.

We wrote a detailed post about how all of this went down here.

I did not set up this fundraiser or ever have access to these funds. I did not have usernames or passwords for this fundraiser. I did not have access to the bank accounts attached to it. I was simply a promoter of the fundraiser and advocate for Bree Newsome and her efforts. I was not compensated in any way for it.

Since the start of this movement I have supported and believed in the young women leading Millennial Activists United. I have privately encouraged donors looking to support people doing good work on the ground to donate to their efforts and have shared their fundraisers privately and publicly.

MAU on Crowdrise : $4,278

MAU on FundRazr: $19,120

I played a small role in these fundraisers, never had access to the funds, and was not compensated for anything in them. I also spoke with friends and executives I know at Crowdrise to make sure the fundraiser remained active when people protested to have it taken down.

Here is a statement from activist Brittany Ferrell:

In regards to Millennial Activists United, you helped with our legal defense fund by retweeting and sharing the link. Again, I want to be clear as to how you helped to promote our fundraiser. We created the fundraisers to help pay for our legal charges against the State of Missouri after our arrest on the Anniversary Michael Brown’s death. There was no other initiative on your part other than sharing the link with your very large platform, and emailing the folks behind Crowdrise when the trolls attempted to have the fundraiser removed. I attest to and confirm these details.

I did not set up this fundraiser or ever have access to these funds. I did not have usernames or passwords for this fundraiser. I did not have access to the bank accounts attached to it. I was simply a promoter of the fundraiser and advocate for these young activists. I was not compensated in any way for it.

Marissa Alexander: $61,733.83

I respect Mariame Kaba of Project Nia a great deal. When I saw that she was helping to raise funds for Marissa Alexander, who was wrongfully incarcerated for protecting herself from an abusive spouse, I jumped in to support the efforts.

We raised funds for Marissa Alexander — who was released from prison. Mariame did the heavy lifting there and I came on late to promote and boost this fund. I did not set up this fundraiser or ever have access to these funds. I did not have usernames or passwords for this fundraiser. I did not have access to the bank accounts attached to it. I was simply a promoter of the fundraiser and advocate for this mother and the efforts to support her. I was not compensated in any way for it.

Here is a statement from Mariame Kaba on this:

With respect to the Marissa Fundraiser, I can confirm that Shaun King helped amplify the 10 days to Freedom Fundraiser that was set up to raise $11,000 to cover ankle monitoring costs from Marissa in January 2015. Shaun came in toward the end of that fundraiser and helped us meet the goal. None of the money from that was ever in Shaun’s control. It went to Marissa’s general legal fund (an online fundraiser that had been set up to help support her legal fees).
Neither Shaun or I had control over those funds, Marissa’s family did through the Free Marissa Now Campaign. Hope that clarifies things.

Since this movement began I helped raise $689,101.83 that I had zero access to and wasn’t compensated for. Every family member, attorney, or leader I have mentioned on here will openly attest to this and has already done so many times over. In spite of this, on a daily basis, I hear:

Shaun King stole from Tamir Rice.

Shaun King stole from Bree Newsome.

Shaun King stole from Black Lives Matter.

Shaun King steals from police brutality victims.

Shaun King stole from Mike Brown.

Shaun King stole from (You Fill in the Blank).

Daily people say that I stole money from Eric Garner’s family. I never even helped raise money for his family in the first place. Here is his daughter Erica.

I started a 501c3 called Justice Together. It was a noble idea to bring together tens of thousands of people from all over the world, virtually, who are disgusted by police brutality but don’t really know what to do about it.

Since August of 2014, we raised $25,580.

Justice Together is a properly registered 501c3. The federal EIN/tax ID # is: 47–3708562. We will file our taxes in 2016 and issue a public report.

$15,580 of that was given online by 165 donors online. Every single dollar was refunded when we decided to stop our work and shut the charity down. Even shutting down was done because I saw that I simply could not properly manage and guide it with the attention it deserved while working as the full-time Senior Justice Writer at NY Daily News, caring for my large family, and continuing grad school. It was my decision to shut down these efforts and to get out of the way for the great women and men who are continuing the hard work on the ground for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Person after person who donated to Justice Together openly stated on Twitter that they received their full refunds of what they donated.

This is Vonnetta West, a respected staff member of The King Center here in Atlanta.

Another donor, Matthew Poldberg, actually went so far as to tweet a screenshot of the receipt to this refunds.

Another donor shared her experience receiving the refunds that she did not even request. Dozens of donors actually told us not to refund them the money, but we did it anyway and encouraged them to give the funds to the Black Lives Matter movement. We did not want any questions about where the funds went.

In addition to the $15,580 that we refunded to every single online donor, we received a single $10,000 donation from a board member. Those funds were spent on 13 different line items including online expenses like email & web hosting, travel costs, legal and incorporation costs, and an office rental.

In spite of all of this, Goldie Taylor and The Daily Beast still decided to run a recent story about “where” ALL of the funds I have raised for Black Lives Matter have gone. Of course, because lies circle the earth twice while truth is still trying to put on its shoes, it took off like wildfire. People shared it all day long — thousands of times.

Even though I sent Goldie detailed records of every dime I ever raised during the Black Lives Matter movement, she and Daily Beast went with this.

What was hurtful and disgusting about this story written by Goldie Taylor is that she literally told me on the phone days before the story was published that every person she spoke to, including her personal friends, told her repeatedly that they received a full refund for their donations to Justice Together. In addition to that, I offered to put her in contact with every single family I raised money for in the Black Lives Matter movement. It appears that she didn’t speak to a single one of them. I asked.

When editors at The Daily Beast began erroneously tweeting that I received a huge salary from funds raised for the Black Lives Matter movement, I immediately contacted Goldie Taylor, and she said that it was wrong and unfair. Here is my exchange with Goldie on Twitter.

In spite of her conceding that her editors were misrepresenting me, they offered no retractions and she actually doubled down and promoted it all day long. What’s ugly is that what Goldie and The Daily Beast did here was actually paraphrase white supremacist stories written about my work without actually doing her own due diligence. She and The Daily Beast literally tried to say previous salaries I received when Mike Brown was still alive, which had nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement, and actually had very little to do with Black folk in general, was me abusing this movement.

In April of 2014, I stepped down from the charity HopeMob and all of our assets were acquired by another organization before the Black Lives Matter movement, as we know it, even began. Interestingly enough, almost every cause HopeMob ever promoted was actually either of white families in need or international causes around the world. When Goldie and The Daily Beast made it out like my work there was a part of the Black Lives Matter movement, it wasn’t a typo, it was a deliberate lie to smear me and this movement. One had nothing to do with the other. They knew that.

At this point, negative stories about me are popular. I’ve had several news platforms flat out tell me that some of the most shared stories they’ve written in 2015 were about me. What this basically means is that major companies make money off of running negative stories about me. White supremacists and racists share them by the thousands, then folk who read the headlines without ever actually knowing the facts, share them like they must be true.

They aren’t.

In addition to saying that I have defrauded families in this movement, people have continued to say that I have gotten rich off of speaking engagements about Black Lives Matter. This is a complete fabrication.

For the past 18 months, I have refused every single honorarium that has been offered to me for engagements all over the country and around the world. I have not received a single dime for speaking anywhere these past 18 months. Feel free to contact any PR departments of these schools or businesses.

I spoke at Yale Law School for free.

I spoke at Georgia Tech for free.

I spoke at Spelman College for free.

I spoke at Morehouse College for free.

I spoke at the Supernova South conference for free.

I wrote guest pieces for The Guardian & Ebony for free.

I have consulted with dozens of charities and churches and businesses on what they can do in this movement for free.

I have appeared regularly on BBC, CBC, and have been a weekly guest on Sirius XM for free.

I have privately advised countless celebrities on how they can advocate the causes of the Black Lives Matter movement for free and have deliberately played down my role with them so it did not even appear like I was benefitting from any such relationships.

The lies go beyond money.

People say my wife and I lie about how many kids we have when in fact the number has just changed often because we have adopted and fostered many of our nieces and nephews.

People said I lied about how many spinal surgeries I had after I was assaulted in high school or that I lied about ever being assasulted in the first place. I missed 18 months of high school recovering from multiple spinal surgeries from the assault. Mind you — this was in 1995, but eyewitness after eyewitness came forward to confirm the assault and my injuries. I’ve had more surgeries since.

This is a thorough accounting of every single dollar I have helped to raise since this movement began. I am proud of what we’ve done to help so many families in need and refuse to be demonized for my role as a promoter of fundraisers. It is because I have been effective at this that these attacks started from racists in the first place. I raised funds for white folk for years and nobody said a single thing about it. It wasn’t until I started raising funds for victims of police brutality that I began being attacked for it. That these lies continue to spread in spite of the reality that we have been more transparent than nearly any charity or fundraiser in this space, is disgusting. That people have fallen for the white supremacist agenda may be even worse.

In spite of all of our efforts, 2015 was the deadliest year for police brutality ever measured. In fact, December of 2015 was the worst December ever measured. As I am typing this I am learning about multiple people who were killed by American police on Christmas day. I will proudly continue to serve as the Senior Justice Writer for the New York Daily News. I will proudly continue to help families affected by police brutality in whatever way I can. I will proudly continue to advocate for justice in America and beyond in whatever ways I can.