Black Lives Matter is in the news again. Not because there’s another police shooting they can exploit, but because another one of its leaders in Illinois has been accused of mishandling donations.
Except, in this case, there was a brawl.
Black Lives Matter Lake County founder Clyde McLemore was caught on surveillance and bodycam footage fighting with staffer Nyesha A. Hill in the organization’s Waukegan office. The donnybrook escalated after a dispute over money, according to a police report.
The altercation, which occurred on January 12, happened at the Black Lives Matter Resource Center and left both parties with minor injuries. Neither individual has yet been arrested. Footage of the fight recently went viral on social media and has shone a new spotlight on the growing list of scandals involving the organization’s leaders.
Officers were called to the office at around 12:30 p.m. to respond to a report of battery. McLemore and Hill gave contradicting accounts of who started the fight. Hill said McLemore pushed her first after she demanded the money she said he owed her. McLemore claimed Hill grabbed his hood and struck him when he tried to exit the building.
🚨BREAKING: The founder of BLM in Illinois, J. McLemore was caught on video engaging in a physical fight with a female worker, who alleges that he has been embezzling money from the organization. pic.twitter.com/m8NoBFFp8c
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) March 3, 2026
Neither individual wished to press charges, so the officers documented the incident and left without arresting anyone. This was not the first physical altercation between the two. Detectives later found earlier surveillance footage from November showing them in another fight tied to a money dispute.
Hill alleges that McLemore has mishandled grant funding and refused to pay her for her work at the resource center. She said he often spends donation money on personal expenses while she worked hard to keep the center running.
McLemore told police that the organization had already spent the grant money and there was none left to pay Hill.
This is not the first time Black Lives Matter has been in the news for getting funny with the money. The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has been under scrutiny over how it handled the tens of millions of dollars that poured in during the 2020 George Floyd protests, Capital B News reported.
The Justice Department is investigating whether the group’s leaders defrauded donors in 2020 and misled its supporters and misused funds. The foundation raised $90 million likely mostly from white progressives who believed they were helping black people by supporting the group.
Other local Black Lives Matter chapters have faced fraud and embezzlement allegations. In Oklahoma, executive director Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson was indicted on 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering after prosecutors said she misappropriated over $3 million that donors believed were going toward bail funds and social justice initiatives.
