The most famous boycott in the history of the Civil Rights Movement began in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 after seamstress Rosa Parks, an active member of the local NAACP, refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger and move to the back of the bus. Within days of her arrest for violating racist Jim Crow laws, a boycott of the city’s municipal transit system was underway.
The year-long action caused economic devastation to the local bus company, drew national attention, launched the career of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and ended with a Supreme Court decision ruling that Montgomery’s segregated buses were unconstitutional.
Backsliding by U.S. corporations on commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives has brought the tactic of boycotts back to the forefront of our national dialogue on civil rights and civil wrongs. Withholding our money is a powerful tool to make corporate America pay for retreating from efforts to make executive suites, boardrooms, employee ranks and vendor contracts more accurately reflect the demographics of our nation.
Under President Donald Trump, the federal government has declared war on diversity, eliminated DEI from its vocabulary and threatened legal action against companies, universities and nonprofits that promote equal opportunity. His actions have gutted advancement efforts for not just African Americans, but also for women, people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ+ community and military veterans.
The ploy, which includes downplaying or eliminating observations of Black History Month, is just another example of Trump’s strategy to rouse his base with racist appeals that end up dividing rather than uniting Americans in common cause. His outrageous policies, along with the companies toeing his divisive bottom line, demand a coordinated economic response. The depth of White House hypocrisy was shown this last weekend, when Trump, amidst a small-circle celebration of Black History Month, dismissed General Charles Q. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after he was attacked as a DEI hire.
Bostonians know something about the power of holding back dollars to effect social change. Local leaders like Mel King and Byron Rushing led successful efforts in the 1980s to divest public pension funds from South African-based companies and pressure U.S. firms doing business there to withdraw from the apartheid nation. Irish immigrants flooding Boston in the late 1800s brought with them stories of tenants who withheld labor and rents from the cruel and repressive land agent Charles Boycott, who gave his name to the practice of punishing immoral corporate behavior with economic pain.
Black buying power in America is expected to surge to $1.98 trillion in 2025, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth. Strategically leveraged, that economic clout can wield enormous power over companies that are bending the knee to Trump’s mischaracterization of DEI, which seeks to expand opportunities to qualified individuals and not, as Trump says, hire employees with inferior qualifications.
Among the many companies in the bullseye of Black boycotters is Target, the giant retailer based in Minneapolis, where the murder of George Floyd by a local cop in 2020 sparked a racial reckoning across the country. Target, like many other major corporations, instituted policies in its 2,000 stories to hire more women and minorities, expand minority vendor buying and improve the experience of Black shoppers. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and the on-line shopping behemoth Amazon have also announced their retreat from progressive hiring and promotion policies. Momentum is gathering as well for a viewer boycott of MSNBC after it fired Joy Reid – an outspoken Black critic of Trump — and cancelled her show.
The list of companies waving the white flag goes on and on — Pepsi, Google, McDonald’s, Walmart, Ford, Lowe’s, John Deere, Goldman Sachs and Tractor Supply, among them. Carefully crafted public relations statements routinely state corporate commitment to a watered-down version of “diversity” but are obviously cowed by Trump’s so-called “War on Wokeness.”
The National NAACP recently issued a spending guide to steer Black Americans’ buying power toward companies that haven’t put DEI in the crosshairs. Listing brands that have stood by or reversed past commitment to DEI, the civil rights organization published its Black Consumer Advisory to encourage “consumers to ‘buy-in’ on companies that back their values.”
“Diversity is better for the bottom line,” NAACP President Derrick Jackson told the Associated Press, echoing studies showing better corporate performance of companies embracing inclusion. “In a global economy, those who reject the multicultural nature of consumerism and business will be left in the past they are living in.”
The companies praised for standing by DEI in the NAACP advisory include Costco, Apple, Ben & Jerry’s, Delta Airlines and JPMorgan Chase & Co. “We encourage you to spend your money where you’re respected, support Black-owned businesses and demand businesses prioritize people over profits,” advises the guide. Black consumers interested in finding out more about the NAACP initiative can visit naacp.org/BlackConsumerPower.
The Trump executive order at the heart of the assault on DEI directed federal agencies to end “illegal preferences and discrimination” in government and directed federal agencies to coordinate with the Department of Justice “to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.” While boycotters target companies that are knuckling under to Trump’s social thug campaign, court challenges to the Trump directive have also been mounted. But relying on the courts and its many Trump-appointed judges is putting hope over experience. Let those cases go forward but take action yourself. Spend your hard-earned dollars with companies that share your values and your aspirations for equality and opportunity.
Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner
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