When the BLM Grift Runs Dry

Where did all the Black Lives Matter money go? Well, some of it went into a big mansion in Studio City, California but there were many smaller BLM groups around the country who took in lots of money back in 2020 and 2021. By 2023 the well seemed to be running dry however and in 2026 most people have moved on.

But there’s still a local BLM outfit in Lake County, Illinois, which is north of Chicago along the border with Wisconsin. And there’s still somebody who leads that effort and at least one other person who works there. But it seems like the money has dried up and that’s creating problems.

Clyde McLemore, the executive director for Black Lives Matter in Lake County, Illinois, was seen fighting with project manager Nyesha Hill under a large BLM banner in the corridor of a Waukegan resource center, according to surveillance video shared by Lake and McHenry County Scanner. 

It showed them flailing arms and grappling — with Hill mostly getting the upper hand against the group leader, who was wearing a BLM hoodie.

The female staffer twice managed to throw the executive director to the floor, easily keeping him pinned there as he squirmed around trying to get back to his feet.

Many fights come down to scarce resources. In this case, the person on the right is Clyde McLemore, the BLM executive director and the person on the left is Nyesha Hill, his employee…maybe?

New Ngo Comment: The founder of Black Lives Matter Lake County in Illinois was recorded on leaked surveillance footage attacking a female subordinate at the BLM office. The woman held her own and knocked Clyde McLemore to the ground repeatedly.

BLM is a movement full of violent… pic.twitter.com/UTjd9z6zaY

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) March 3, 2026

A local news site has the backstory to what happened here. According to McLemore, he was at his desk when Hill came in demanding money and cigarettes.

McLemore told officers he was in his office on his computer when Hill, who is a worker at the organization, came into the office asking for money and cigarettes, the report said.

McLemore said he told Hill no because he did not have any money and asked her to get out.

Bodycam video shows McLemore telling officers his organization “ain’t got no money” so he could not pay Hill for her work. “That money is gone,” McLemore said, referring to a grant.

McLemore claimed he tried to leave and that’s when Hill grabbed him and started a fight: Hill didn’t deny coming to the office for money but claimed McLemore started the fight.

“I told him, ‘it’s not fair that I come here and I work and you running around taking care of other things that don’t got nothing to do with Black Lives Matter with Black Lives Matter money.’ I’m the one that make this joint work,” Hill told officers, according to bodycam video.

Hill said she refused to leave his office until he paid her for working at the organization.

She told officers that he then got up from his seat and shoved her back with his hands and they began fighting.

Hill refused to press charges to avoid sending McLemore to jail, which admittedly would be awkward for two people working for BLM. However, she told the police that, in addition to fighting with her, McLemore had also misused the group’s funds.

In police reports, Hill told officers that she saw McLemore spend money allocated for Black Lives Matter on other things, including “girls” and gambling.

But it sounds like she left something out. In a police interview after the fight, McLemore said he’d given Hill $10,000 to get an apartment but she’d used it to buy a car instead. It’s not clear from the video if that was personal money or BLM money.

Anyway, the whole thing makes you wonder where all that money went and whether any of it was used for anything besides employing these two people. An audit would be interesting but I don’t expect it will happen. Nor will any local news outlets investigate. The only reason we’re hearing about this now is because there’s a fight caught on camera. And even so the national news will mostly ignore it. But you can imagine how this would go if two employees for Turning Point USA got into a fight and there were suggestions money was being misused. That would not be treated as a local news story.

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