Robert Johnson, the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and the first black billionaire, donated $500,000 to Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears' campaign for Virginia governor.
🚨New: Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaign announced a long-time Democrat donor and Co-Founder of BET donated $500k to Earle-Sears’ gubernatorial campaign after a racist sign was directed at her at an Arlington school board rally. https://t.co/kVR6WagSD7 pic.twitter.com/sDnPFI79Bu
— Nick Minock (@NickMinock) August 29, 2025
Johnson has been a lifelong Democrat, but has recently expressed criticism of the Democratic party, specifically in how they take their black voters for granted, and has called for the left-wing group, Black Lives Matter, to separate themselves from the Democratic party and run their own candidates focused on "the permanent interest of African Americans."
Johnson told Earle-Sears:
Madam Lt. Governor. I was so appalled by that racist diatribe displayed by a useful idiot at a recent press event that I chose to show all the voters of Virginia how Black Brothers stand up to defend their Black Sisters when confronted with unadulterated racism. I have always been a good investor and that is why I'm investing in you.
🚨New: Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaign announced a long-time Democrat donor and Co-Founder of BET donated $500k to Earle-Sears’ gubernatorial campaign after a racist sign was directed at her at an Arlington school board rally. https://t.co/kVR6WagSD7 pic.twitter.com/sDnPFI79Bu
— Nick Minock (@NickMinock) August 29, 2025
The donation comes shortly after a racist sign was spotted last week at Arlington County, Virginia's school board meeting. The sign read: “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain.”
Abigail Spanberger’s Democrat Party is blaming me for the racist sign her own volunteer made.
— Winsome Earle-Sears (@winwithwinsome) August 24, 2025
I know Abigail and her elitist cabal are desperate and deluded but this is a whole new level of crazy. pic.twitter.com/E1LlqXlcww
When asked about the sign, Earle-Sears told 7News
It’s a shame. She was holding up that sign for a whole hour, Nick, and nobody said to her to take it down. They're spewing hate. The very hate that they say we on the Republican side are doing is what they're doing, and it's a shame. And remember who I am. I'm an immigrant to this wonderful country, and not only that, but I'm a Black woman, and so I'm second in command in the former capital of the Confederate States, for her to talk about a water fountain that Blacks - so she started with me, she started with me and then she went to Black people in general - can't be at her water fountain.
Are we going back to Klan days now? Is that what you're saying? But you're a Democrat. You know, none of this makes any sense. And all I'm trying to do is to say parents are trying to raise their young boys, for example, to respect women, to honor women. And yet we have school systems, Loudoun school system, that wants to force these young boys to undress in front of biological girls, so they're getting in the way of a parent who wants to raise their child properly. And then we have other school systems like Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William, Fairfax, and Loudoun, of course, who say, well, ‘Title IX doesn't really matter’, and that, yes, they will force young girls even to undress in front of biological men.
Earle-Sears' Democratic opponent in the Governor's race, Abigail Spanberger, condemned the sign, calling it racist and abhorrent.