By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
The Target boycott is working — and now Black America must hold Dollar General accountable for failing to invest in the community.
On the grounds of local Target stores from Georgia to California, hundreds of people knelt in prayer on May 25, the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. For 9 minutes and 29 seconds — the exact length of time former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck — faith leaders across the nation marked a spiritual and economic line in the sand.
Indeed, these prayer vigils were declarations that the economically exploitative relationship in which the Black Community spent an average of $12 million a day in Target stores is over.
“Who stood with us 10 toes down on Sunday, outside of Target in prayer, asking God to shift some things and remove some things and bring down whatever is an obstacle to our progress and to our assignment in the earth?” Rev. Dr. Jamal Harrison-Bryant asked in a video clip posted on Instagram.
And then, Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, announced that the boycott of Target, which began on Ash Wednesday as a modern-day fast during Lent, has now escalated into a full cancellation of the big-box retailer.
“Effective, immediately. Target is canceled,” he said. The company doesn’t “value who it is that we are. You don’t honor what it is that we bring to the table. You don’t respect our dollars.”
Most Successful Black Boycott in 70 Years
Some people may not remember that Target headquarters is in Minneapolis, just 10 minutes away from the site of Floyd’s murder.
Post-Floyd uprisings, Target promised to reopen one of the stores that had been damaged by protests against police brutality. The company also pledged “to increase its Black workforce by 20%” and establish “Racial Equity Action and Change committee to focus specifically on how we can drive lasting impact” in the Black community.
However, Target donated $1 million to the Trump Inaugural Committee — and after the Trump administration issued an executive order labeling diversity, equity, and inclusion as “illegal” and “immoral,” Target discontinued or scaled back its DEI initiatives.
During a CNN OutFront interview on May 28, Bryant told host Erin Burnett that the “boycott against Target is the most successful boycott by Black people in 70 years, since the Montgomery bus boycott.”
He’s not exaggerating, either. “They’ve lost $1 billion in valuation. Their stock tumbled from $145 a share to $93 a share. The CEO’s salary was cut by 43%,” Bryant said, noting that it’s an example “of what happens when our community mobilizes and stays focused.”
Along with canceling Target, Bryant says Black America must now take on the Dollar General.
“Like other corporations, Dollar General has bowed to pressure from the Trump administration and rolled back their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives,” Bryant told USA Today. “Dollar General also needs to be held accountable for failing to invest in the very Black and low-income communities that make up the backbone of their customer base. This isn’t just a corporate retreat — it’s a betrayal of the people they profit from.”
Unlike the Target campaign, which encouraged consumers to stop shopping at the retailer, the Dollar General action is an electronic-based call-in and email campaign. Why the different tactic? The nation’s more than 20,000 Dollar General stores, he noted, are embedded in many rural Black communities where access to food and basic goods is limited.
“Dollar General is within five miles of 75% of Americans’ homes, and still no accountability. They are a contributor to food deserts, not just in absence of food, but absence of fairness. And so we wanted to hold them accountable,” he said.
In urban areas with other options, though, “we’re asking them to stay away, and to call or to email and to use social media, just as we did with Target.”
Photo by Mikhail Nilov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/arrow-on-the-bullseye-6620420/
