{"id":413,"date":"2025-06-11T13:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T13:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/?p=413"},"modified":"2025-07-13T14:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T14:53:44","slug":"pastor-jamal-harrison-bryant-on-target-boycott-victory-and-the-black-dollars-power-theyve-awakened-a-sleeping-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/11\/pastor-jamal-harrison-bryant-on-target-boycott-victory-and-the-black-dollars-power-theyve-awakened-a-sleeping-giant\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant on Target boycott \u2018victory\u2019 and the Black dollar\u2019s power: \u2018They\u2019ve awakened a sleeping giant\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/span>n 2 February, a month before lent, Jamal Harrison Bryant stepped up to the pulpit of his Atlanta area megachurch. Wearing a sweater bearing Muhammad Ali\u2019s likeness and standing <\/strong>behind a lectern branded with a Black power fist clutching a cross, the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church railed against companies that rolled back their DEI initiatives<\/a> to appease Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Explicitly, Bryant, 54, singled out Target \u2013 which, among other things, had pledged<\/a> to invest $2bn in Black-owned businesses by the end of 2025 as corporate reparations after the murder of George Floyd<\/a> \u2013 for going back on its word. He urged the \u201cconscientious Christian community\u201d to link arms with his 10,000 church members and commit to a 40-day \u201cfast\u201d from the company starting on Ash Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A month earlier, a number of activists and civil rights leaders had protested in front of Target\u2019s Minneapolis headquarters, calling for a nationwide boycott. But Bryant\u2019s clarion call cut through, perhaps because it invoked a history that Trump has also placed in the crosshairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we learned from the Montgomery bus boycott is that racist America doesn\u2019t respond to speeches, it responds to dollars,\u201d Bryant intoned, urging parishioners to liquidate their Target stock while acknowledging the risk he was taking in fomenting this protest as Trump was embracing authoritarianism. \u201cI\u2019m saying this before they got a new FBI chief that calls us a terrorist organization. We doing it in decency and in order. Target, you got 40 days to pull it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

When those 40 days passed and Target followed through on its DEI rollback, Bryant upped the ante on Ash Wednesday and called for the #TargetFast to shift to a \u201cfull-out boycott\u201d. He challenged Black Americans in particular, who are among the big box chain\u2019s most loyal customers, to hold the line. \u201cWe are engaged in this battle because you don\u2019t get to walk away from your public commitments to Black people and think there will not be consequences and repercussions,\u201d Bryant said at a town hall meeting in April. \u201cSomebody is going to accept the price, and we don\u2019t accept layaway in 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fueled by the strength of 200,000 petition signers and Black business leaders and activists such as the Rev Al Sharpton<\/a>, New Birth\u2019s Target boycott has rivaled the global backlash against Tesla<\/a> in its political urgency. It\u2019s also cost the retailer significant sales<\/a> and foot traffic<\/a>. (\u201cWe\u2019re not satisfied with these results,\u201d CEO Brian Cornell said in a call with reporters last month.) Throughout the boycott, Bryant has not hesitated to call out Cardi B<\/a> and other would-be allies for betraying the cause.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite an achievement for a pastor\u2019s kid and preacher-influencer<\/a> who has long maintained an interest in serving the greater good. Ten years ago, Bryant thought about running for<\/a> the congressional seat held by civil rights hero Elijah Cummings after Freddie Gray\u2019s killing rocked his Baltimore home town, before taking over as the senior pastor of New Birth in 2019. He\u2019s also reinvented himself as a podcast host<\/a> and has become an incidental guest star on the Real Housewives of Potomac. (Gizelle Bryant, a lead cast member, is his ex-wife.)<\/p>\n

Days after Bryant announced the next phase of New Birth\u2019s consumer challenge, a nationwide fast from Dollar General, he talked to the Guardian about his boycott demands, the Black entrepreneurs who find themselves caught in the middle, and backing the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of African American History and Culture over the Juneteenth holiday.<\/p>\n

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You have pointed out how much Black Americans spend at Target \u2013 $12m a day, by your reckoning. By calling for a boycott, you\u2019re challenging them to make a drastic change in their behavior. Were you challenging yourself, too?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a #GirlDad to four, including three who are in college, so I had to absorb them protesting: \u201cPlease, don\u2019t take it away! We go in every week at least for lip gloss.\u201d But when I began to walk it to the disservice that Target is doing to the community, it became a no-brainer. They become some of my greatest disciples on college campuses. That\u2019s been really infectious to a lot of people in the community who didn\u2019t understand that we were not looking for charity or a favor from Target. We\u2019re looking for a partner \u2013 even though Black people love Target so much that we\u2019ve already invited them to the cookout and given them a nickname: \u201cTarg\u00e9t<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

What specific demands does the #TargetFast have?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We asked for four things.<\/p>\n

The first is because we spend $12m a day, we want them to invest $250m into Black banks so people can have access to capital for home ownership and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

Second, we asked that they would adopt six HBCUs that have business programs so that young entrepreneurs can learn how to scale and build big box businesses. The reality is we\u2019re 70 years from the Montgomery bus boycott<\/a> and still have no national chain owned by Black people.<\/p>\n

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