Initiatives calling on Black people to boycott Target stores began out of frustration over the cancellation of the corporation’s “diversity” commitments. Initiatives have developed into a national movement that supporters hope will galvanize unity and economic strength.
Ongoing boycotts of Target stores across the country have been called for by figures like former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, founder of We Are Somebody, a coalition-building organization for the working class, and Reverend Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
Rev. Bryant has called on 100,000 conscientious citizens to cease shopping with Target in-store and online from March 3 to April 19. His initiative is also calling on people to sell any Target stock they may own.
Black people in the Civil Rights Movement have strategized by using boycotts during their history in the U.S to call attention to ongoing systematic racism, injustice, mistreatment and violence that they have and continue to suffer.
The most well-known was the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which took place in a year’s time from 1955-1956 and was organized by the Montgomery Improvement Association headed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus.
Were forced to give up their seats if a White passenger wanted it and were subjected to other dehumanizing treatment. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and before her, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin also refused to give up her seat to a White person.
As part of the boycott, Blacks in Montgomery refused to ride the bus and worked together to organize carpools. According to several historical reports, 90 percent of Black people participated.
“Although African Americans represented at least 75 percent of Montgomery’s bus ridership, the city resisted complying with the protester’s demands.
To ensure the boycott could be sustained, Black leaders organized carpools, and the city’s African American taxi drivers charged only 10 cents—the same price as bus fare—for African American riders,” noted history.com.
“Many Black residents chose simply to walk to work or other destinations. Black leaders organized regular mass meetings to keep African American residents mobilized around the boycott,” the website stated.
Black folks demanded that the busses be desegregated and that Black bus drivers be hired. After a year, the U.S. Supreme Court voted that desegregation on public buses was unconstitutional.
While the strategy of boycotts can be impactful, it is also critical that Black people work together to direct their money to Black businesses and banks to harness their collective economic power for real progress.
Minister Farrakhan, like his teacher the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, have called Black people to unify and have challenged Black America to harness their purchasing power, noted Student Minister Demetric Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam’s Research Group.
An important step the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan have pointed to is to begin to spend money in support of Black-owned businesses.
Both Divine Servants have also, over the years, asked Black people to withdraw economically from supporting White businesses and other institutions that do not serve the Black community, explained Student Min. Demetric Muhammad.
“So, with that as a context, naturally, I am happy to see the Christian community and other elements within the larger Black community begin to use this kind of wisdom (do for self) as a means to give our people a better experience in America. The hope is that this kind of thinking will grow, that it will mature and that it will spread,” said Student Min. Demetric Muhammad.
“The selective non-buying campaign focused on all Target stores in America is about challenging the continued profound disrespect that Target exhibits to Black America.
Target’s ending DEI is a racial affront to Black consumers and we should not buy anything from companies that disrespect us,” Dr. Benjamin Chavis, National Newspaper Publishers Association president and CEO, told The Final Call.
Rev. Bryant’s initiative demands that Target: 1) honors the 2 billion dollar pledge to the Black business community through products, services, and Black media buys; 2) deposit $250 million amongst any of its 23 Black banks; 3) completely restores the franchise commitment to DEI; and 4) pipeline community centers at 10 HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) to teach retail business at every level.
The initiative, which has partnered with U.S. Black Chambers Inc., is rolling out a free, digital business directory featuring 300,000 Black-owned businesses, to participants who make a pledge, according to Rev. Bryant.
“Buycotting is more than a choice—it’s a lifestyle. We must circulate our dollars and support our entrepreneurs,” said Rev. Bryant, who launched the “economic fast” on Feb. 2.
Other activists are also launching similar initiatives. “We are boycotting Target first, then we will continue to organize more boycotts, strategically.
We are doing this because our politics has become saturated with corporate money. If corporations want to shape policy that harms us, we will act accordingly,” read a Feb. 5 post by Nina Turner’s We Are Somebody organization on X.
Author and economist Dr. Julianne Malveaux supports the ongoing boycott calls and emphasized the need for sustained economic action. “African American people have tremendous economic strength, and we need to flex our economic muscles.
I think that all of these calls are important if they are sustained. In other words, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was 381 days. Forty days is not enough. The boycotts need to be long enough and strong enough for Target and anybody else boycotted to be to feel them,” Dr. Malveaux told The Final Call.
“They need to see that their customer base has gone down. They need to feel that people are dissatisfied with their nonsense. They need to know that Black people are not going to just step aside and be feckless consumers and take anything they put out there,” she added.
“Let’s be clear, Target may be a bad guy, but guess what? There are others. Let’s coordinate the ways that we withdraw our dollars from the oppressor,” said Dr. Malveaux.
Where does the boycott effort go from here? “It all depends on us,” said Dr. Malveaux. “But I think that if these companies see a lowering of their support, they might think again about how they’re treating us,” she continued.
“But after the match has been lit, let’s take the flame from person to person to person. Let’s make sure that people understand that indeed we could be funding our own oppression. In other words, these companies that do not respect us, we still buy their stuff. We shouldn’t do that. Why would we do that? What is wrong with us?”
Policies that are being enacted on the federal level are encouraging and in some cases are shocking Black people to do something for themselves or suffer the consequences as the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan have warned of for decades.
Speaking about the boycott, Student Min. Demetric Muhammad said, “I think it’s a step in the right direction, and there are many more steps that need to be taken,” he said.
He cited Bible and Holy Qu’ran scriptures, saying from the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan that the solution to Black people’s problem is a divine one.
“When there was the plight of the enslaved, those who had suffered under cruel task masters and slave masters for 400 years, the scripture says that at the conclusion of their period of suffering, God commanded them to separate.
And so economic withdrawal is a step in the direction of a complete withdrawal from the house, from the mind, from the thinking, from the religion, from the way of life, and ultimately, from the same space as our slave masters and their children and this is an exodus of the children of Israel who had been enslaved,” said Student Min. Demetric Muhammad.
In addition to redirecting those dollars into the building of Black businesses, it is about redirecting more dollars into the building of Black institutions, he said.
“Minister Farrakhan challenged Black America to give into a national treasury 35 cents a week that we might purchase land that we would ultimately be able to feed ourselves in a time of famine but also land and territory that we could call our own, that we could begin to build a new reality for our people in this country,”
He said, referring to Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint for ending poverty and want. “So, the idea of the divine solution of separation, I’m beginning to see through this boycott is growing inside of Black America,” stated Student Min. Demetric Muhammad added.
“If we would recognize the time, get up and do something for ourselves, God will aid us. He will bless our land, our crops, and whatever we do, if we will do it for ourselves,” Minister Farrakhan said in a March 1, 1987, message titled, “Black Man: Do for Self or Suffer the Consequences.”
“The world will then take notice and marvel, and say, ‘This is a people that were dead, but they are now alive. Look at them. They are now doing something for self,” he said.
