Black Lives Matter, despite the media’s claims, is not a peaceful protest movement. Instead, it is a Marxist, anti-traditional family, and violent movement that has been in existence since 2013.

Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors openly admitted the movement’s Marxist beliefs at an event in 2015 when she said that her movement consists of “trained Marxists.” The New York Post reported that Cullors was the protégé of a former Weather Underground domestic terrorist operative named Eric Mann.

Cullors said, “We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories. And I think that what we really tried to do is build a movement that could be utilized by many, many black folk.”

Cullors’ past work history includes time at the Labor/Community Strategy Center, where Mann mentored her. The center’s grassroots efforts focused “on Black and Latino communities with deep historical ties to the long history of anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, pro-communist resistance to the US empire.” The center also supported efforts by the U.S. Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and other left-wing and radical groups.

Marxism is the political ideology created by socialist thinkers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-1800s. Britannica defined the ideology as a “body of doctrine” that mixes a specific interpretation of history, economics and political programs, and philosophy. There is Soviet Marxism, which was implemented by Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin and his successor Joseph Stalin. There is also a different version of Soviet Marxism interpreted by Leon Trotsky, a political opponent of Stalin’s (and was subsequently assassinated on Stalin’s orders), and another version implemented by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong.

Marxism, at its core, advocates for the tearing down of capitalist institutions and economies and replacing it with top-down, central command control of economics and political institutions. For example, instead of a capitalist free market system where consumers dictate demand and quality, the central government would dictate economic demand and quality, in addition to setting quotas and uniform salaries across industries. Politically, Marxism emphasizes a totalitarian regime, with little room for dissent, free speech, and exercise of religion as the state becomes the overseer of civilian life. When Marxism cannot reach its ends through peaceful means, such as free and open elections, its followers resort to violence and revolution, as the 1917 Russian Revolution demonstrated with the fall (and eventual execution) of the Russian royal family and its government.