A group of Black faith leaders have announced a Lent-inspired boycott of retail giant Target over the company’s rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Speaking from the historically Black Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., Bishop Reginald T. Jackson said Monday that the Black church would “become the leader of our people.”
“If corporate America can’t stand with us, we’re not going to stand with corporate America,” Jackson said.
Target announced in a January memo that it would end its three-year DEI goals, as well as its Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives. The company had already planned to end the REACH initiatives this year.
The rollbacks meant the company would end its program that focused on carrying more products from Black- and minority-owned businesses and no longer participate in national diversity surveys, including the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which measures corporate policies, practices and benefits as they apply to LGBTQ employees.
On Monday, Jackson teamed up with Barbara Williams-Skinner, civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill, and the Rev. William Lamar, pastor of Metropolitan AME Church, to announce the boycott.
Skinner issued a dire warning to those gathered at the church.
“We’re here today because what we’re seeing for 30 days is a foretaste of four years,” Skinner said. “This is already telling us that if we don’t stop it at 30 days, we won’t have a country. We won’t have a democracy.”
Since taking the oath of office, President Trump has aggressively targeted DEI policies in both the federal government and corporate America.
Just days after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to end “illegal preferences and discrimination” in government and help find ways to “encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”
In addition to Target, companies including McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon and Tractor Supply have all ended or rolled back their DEI pledges, many of which were made in the wake of social unrest in 2020.
Black faith leaders and civil rights organizations around the country have since called for “buycotts” of these companies.
The NAACP this week released its Black Consumer Advisory, a project that lists companies that have recommitted to DEI in recent weeks while also highlighting major corporations that have dismantled their programs.
Earlier this month, Atlanta Pastor Jamal Bryant also called for a 40-day “fast” of Target.
Target declined The Hill’s request for comment.
On Martin Luther King Jr., Day, which coincided with inauguration day this year, Rev. Al Sharpton announced a boycott of companies that have rolled back DEI, along with a 90-day study of what companies have given up on DEI and what their margins of profit are.
Jackson on Monday said he hopes the boycott will expand outside the Black community.
“I really hope that as we go forward…not only Blacks, but all those who are supportive of justice, will also join us in this effort to seek to redeem all that’s going on,” Jackson said. “‘I want you to do what’s right.’ That’s what we have to be able to say to corporate America.”
—Updated at 11:23 a.m. Eastern
