Target Boycott Working? Activists Keep Up The Pressure.
Organizers of a Target boycott that began in January are pointing to their tactics as a hopeful sign that actions against corporate retailers can still make a deep impact.
When Target announced its current chief executive officer will be stepping down in February 2026 and an insider was taking the helm, those organizers saw it as a move in the right direction and stress more than ever that boycotts will continue as long as previous promises made to the public go unfulfilled.
“It’s been now nearly 200 days and what all the statistics and economics are showing that since that boycott was announced on that Monday — every single week since then — Target foot traffic in nearly 2,000 stores has declined sharply and continues to decline,” said organizer Jaylani Hussein, at a news conference of the National Target Boycott movement outside Target’s Minneapolis headquarters late last week.
Boycott organizers in Minnesota were among some of the first to galvanize when Target opted in January to follow other companies like Amazon and Walmart and forego diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. High-profile civil rights activists like the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jamal Bryant also made similar calls for what they deemed a betrayal of previous DEI promises.
by TERRY TANG, Associated Press
The boycott of Target may be working and thats the hope of the activists who initiated it. The broad cancelling of brands and people seems to have lost some of its luster but with profit margins shrinking with inflation now rising again, any drop in sales can hurt the bottom line in a bit way. Target’s sales may have already been dropping but its difficult the pinpoint the exact reason or when the sales slide began. Regardless, the boycott technique is not going anywhere anytime soon.
