Consumer boycotts target DEI divestment, but are they working? What we know.
Consumer boycotts have targeted companies like Amazon and Target that have scaled back their DEI efforts, but are they having any effect? Here’s what we know:
Atlanta pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant’s announcement sparked fireworks when he called off a year-long targeted fast.
At a hastily convened press conference outside Target’s headquarters in Minneapolis on March 11, grassroots activists denounced Bryant and told the world that a national boycott of the company’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion was not his goal. Targeted shoppers, particularly black women, attacked his Instagram page, claiming he did not represent them.
Two days later, Bryant admitted on the “Let’s Be Clear” podcast that he “looked at the room the wrong way.”
“I was reading a different sheet of music,” he said. “I would like to apologize for being a leader who was out of step with what the community wanted.”
When Target repealed its DEI policy shortly after President Donald Trump took office, it sparked a boycott across the United States. From church pulpits to community meetings, this policy U-turn was widely seen as a betrayal of the black Americans who have supported the retail giant’s wealth.
The national uproar largely subsided until this new controversy thrust the Target boycott back into the public spotlight.
Minneapolis civil rights activist and attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, launched the boycott in February 2025, along with Minnesota Black Lives Matter co-founder Monique Cullors Doty, Minnesota CAIR Executive Director Jailani Hussein, and others.
Armstrong told USA TODAY that Black shoppers won’t return until Target changes its DEI policies.
“Target’s refusal to reinstate its DEI promise makes clear that it is willing to lose Black consumers and women (many of whom have already left) to appease its MAGA customer base,” Armstrong said. “Target made a conscious choice to align with the Trump administration. We the people made a conscious choice to take our money elsewhere.”
Former Ohio Sen. Nina Turner said her organization, We Are Somebody, which called for a national boycott the day after Target announced cuts to its DEI program, is not giving up either.
“In previous meetings between organizers and Target’s management, the company’s management was hostile to the very idea of diversity, equity and inclusion,” Turner told USA TODAY. “While Pastor Bryant will be stepping back from our efforts, we will not only continue our boycott, but will further escalate our actions to hold companies accountable.”
For Target shoppers, the boycott is personal
Shoppers who haven’t set foot in a Target store in over a year made their feelings known on social media.
“Black women said don’t go to that shitty store,” Gina Meadows, 45, a digital creator from Atlanta who encourages people to read more, said on her Instagram account. “We can renovate, revive, and renew, but we cannot go back.”
Meadows shopped at Target two or three times a week. The reason for this was that the company’s ads featuring black people and black culture, as well as products for and by black people, made them feel seen.
Whether collaborating with actress Tabitha Brown or scouting blenders, she stopped by Target just to check on the latest information. I took my girlfriend to Target on a date and we got to know each other as we strolled down the aisles. “This was one of the best dates I’ve ever been on,” she said. But now the man is history, and so is the target, she said.
The Black community is not monolithic, and many Black people still shop at Target, but Meadows said those angry about the abandonment of DEI “will never turn back.” “We don’t need an apology. We don’t need an HBCU initiative. It’s over. It’s over.”
“They don’t care about us.”
Like Meadows, Karen Jones, 56, a retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employee and longtime red card shopper from Severn, Md., used to rely entirely on Target.
It’s her one-stop shop for Christmas and Easter, and it’s been her go-to store no matter where she lives or what’s going on in her life, even when her oldest daughter was murdered last year.
“It was the most devastating thing I’ve ever experienced,” she told USA TODAY. “It seems like a small thing, but when I went to buy clothes for her memorial service, I went to Target. That was the first place I wanted to go.”
Jones said she hasn’t been back since Target’s DEI policy change and has no plans to return to her old shopping destination. Target doesn’t have her trust or her wallet, she says.
“To have them make the decisions that they’ve made since the new administration took office was very hurtful, just very hurtful,” Jones said. “We’re not a community that’s going to throw money at a company that doesn’t care about us. And we feel like they don’t care about us.”
Target declined to comment. In a previous statement to USA TODAY, Target said it is “more committed than ever to creating growth and opportunity for everyone.”
“We will continue to serve as a trusted neighbor while delivering results for our team members, guests and the more than 2,000 communities we serve,” the company said in a statement. “Because when those communities thrive, we thrive.”
From DEI cheerleader to backpedaler
Target was once one of the most vocal supporters of black Americans. It dedicated shelf space to black businesses and promoted collaborations with black businesses. It appeared at the Essence Festival of Culture, an annual celebration of black culture.
Racial justice emerged as an even higher priority after the 2020 killing of George Floyd just a few miles from our headquarters. The company has committed to increasing the number of Black employees across the company by 20% and committed to spending more than $2 billion to Black-owned businesses by the end of 2025.
But when President Trump issued an executive order aimed at eliminating “illegal DEI” in the federal government and private sector, Target joined the flood of DEI efforts.
Major companies have abandoned DEI programs to avoid scrutiny from the White House. Diversity goals were raised to increase the black workforce. Our supplier diversity program has been rebranded to no longer consider race or gender.
Target said at the time that it was keeping pace with the “evolving external environment.” But that backpedaling has put the company in a difficult position.
For many years, it has been affectionately known as “Tar-zhay” and has benefited from its close ties to the Black community and Black-owned brands. Church pastors and community activists have now taken up arms across the country to protest.
DEI is just one target problem
This was not the first time Target had been targeted culturally. In recent years, when anti-DEI groups launched boycotts over “woke” culture, Target responded by scaling back its Pride Month merchandise, angering LGBTQ+ customers.
Increased pressure from activists on both sides is one of the biggest challenges facing CEO Michael Fidelke, who took over as CEO in August, said David Primo, a political science and business professor at the University of Rochester in New York.
Target has reported 13 consecutive quarters of poor sales. Company officials acknowledged that shopper anger was a contributing factor.
“Target remains a battleground for activists of the right and left, and the new CEO has not yet found a way to extricate the company from this role,” Primo said. “Mr. Fidelke already faces the huge task of turning around a company with serious financial problems. This certainly won’t solve the problem.”
Fidelke recently laid out a $6 billion turnaround plan that calls for new investments in stores, employees and technology. He also reduced prices on more than 3,000 products.
“The reality is that while the boycott has had some financial impact on Target, it is not the primary cause of the chain’s sales decline. That decline started long before DEI became an issue, and is driven by poor execution, particularly in-store pricing, service and out-of-stock issues,” said Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail. “However, boycotts are not helpful and create a lot of negative noise.”
This negative noise was picked up in Fidelke’s recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, in which he admitted that Target was “not clear enough about who we are.”
Paul Argenti, a professor of corporate communications at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, said targets need to be clearer and more authentic to customers.
“Stakeholders are testing whether the target’s behaviors, messages, and values are aligned over time,” Argenti said. “At times like these, companies have three options: readjust their strategy, strengthen their position on clear grounds, or retreat.The worst outcome is ambiguity, with no clear indication of which path their actions and messages have taken.”
