Black Lives Matter 757 Leader Received Payment From Republican Candidates During Elections 2023

Last week former Republican Delegate Tim Anderson who is seeking a return to the Virginia House of Delegates announced that Black Lives Matter 757 had argeed to serve as the moderators for a debate between his Democrat opponent Delegate Michael Feggans. The debate had not been agreed to by Feggans and Anderson was trying to push it on Feggans.

Black Lives Matter 757 or BLM 757 does not exist as non-profit or corporation in the Commonwealth in Virginia but since 2016 the consistent person behind social media accounts tied to BLM 757 is Aubrey Dwight Jones from Newport News, Virginia. Jones goes by the name Japharii Jones.

Despite a name like 757 to refer to the area code in the Tidewater area of Virginia, BLM 757 has taken part of rallies in Richmond, Charlottesville, and Augusta County while groups like Black Lives Matter DC have distanced themselves from Jones and BLM 757 in 2017.

In 2020, Jones had controversially linked himself to the Boogaloo movement, more specially Kenneth Michael Dunn. While protests happened in Richmond in July of 2020, Boogaloo and BLM 757 had events that contained white supremacists on more than one occasion. Jones and Dunn first public appearance together was at a rally hosted by Dunn where a speaker asked "how many racists do I see here?" and several of the audience members raised their arms like a Nazi salute.

2021, TV Unleashed announced that they were going to make a show called Good Cop, Bad Cop that would follow individuals including Jones and BLM 757. The show would also include Bonnie Chappman, the daughter of Dog the Bounty Hunter and Mike Donovan, a man who once admitted that he hired paid protesters from Craigslist. This show was never released.

In October of 2023, According to the William and Mary University newspaper The Flat Top and Peerawut Ruangsawasdi, Jones used a megaphone to disrupt an event at William and Mary with Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and Virginia Senator Monty Mason. Jones shouted that Mason was racist and cited a 1989 flyer for charity that was referred to as a slave auction.

What was not reported at that time was that Jones was a paid by Mason's Republican opponent, Danny Diggs. Diggs was serving as the York County Sheriff while running for Senate. Election campaign disclosure records show that Diggs campaign paid Jones $500 on the day before the 2023 Election for media/advertisement and $1750 a month later for consulting.

Diggs would go on to win his 2023 election by only 725 votes. From open source reporting from VPAP, Jones was paid over $5400 from Republican candiates for the 2023 elections.

Jones said that he was not a Republican paid consultant but instead a paid political consultant. When asked what other campaigns he had worked for Jones replied "I've been a political consultant since 2017. I'm not giving you more names for you to attempt to drag them into your mess."

Jones also said that he was paid by Ralph Northam's campaign Governor in 2017 but when asked for records of payment, Jones reference a 2017 Washington Times article where he canvassed for Northam's primary opponent, Tom Perriello. But after the election, the Twitter account for BLM 757 posted, "@tomperriello is a fraud, he will use you to look good for the cameras like he did us."

The office of Senator Danny Diggs did not respond for comment.