Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Black church leaders are ramping up the pressure on corporate America as companies continue to roll back their diversity, equity and inclusion policies, trying to serve as a counterbalance to President Donald Trump\u2019s aggressive push to end DEI initiatives across the country.<\/p>\n
The pressure comes as liberals are still trying to figure out how to respond to Trump\u2019s culture war \u2014 and as the Democratic Party grapples with Trump\u2019s improvement among Black and Latino voters<\/a> in the 2024 election.<\/p>\n \u201cDiversity, equity and inclusion is not charity. It’s not a handout and the African American community is a valuable partner,\u201d said Jamal Bryant, a Georgia-based pastor who masterminded a boycott of Target<\/a> after the retailer curtailed its DEI initiatives<\/a> in January. \u201cSo we want to know: If you can take our dollars, how come you won\u2019t stand with us?\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after Trump\u2019s election, major companies like Meta and Google<\/a> rolled back their DEI commitments made in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Within his first week of returning to office, Trump signed an executive order<\/a> eliminating DEI practices in the federal workplace. He called such programs<\/a> \u201cdangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump is bringing back common sense by eliminating DEI policies and making merit the standard once again,\u201d White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston said in a statement. \u201cPerformance-driven companies see the value in President Trump\u2019s policies and are following his lead.\u201d<\/p>\n But Black church leaders see these boycotts \u2014 Bryant announced in May<\/a> that Dollar General would be the next target \u2014 as a way to push back against the Trump-fueled wave and hold companies accountable.<\/p>\n Bryant says his movement has garnered the support of 2,000 other churches and over 200,000 people signed his pledge<\/a> to boycott Target.<\/p>\n Frederick Haynes, the pastor of the 13,000-member Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, said joining the movement reflected how he was raised, influenced by the values of the Civil Rights Movement. Companies, he said, must recognize that they have \u201ca moral responsibility\u201d to profiting.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have a responsibility to morally go inward and check themselves and recognize that you don\u2019t have a United States without diversity, without equity, without being inclusive,\u201d Haynes said.<\/p>\n In a statement to POLITICO, Dollar General said \u201cour mission is not \u2018Serving Some Others\u2019 \u2014 it is simply \u2018Serving Others.\u2019\u201d The company added that it serves millions of Americans \u201cfrom all backgrounds and walks of life\u201d in more than 20,500 stores. \u201cAs we have since our founding, we continuously evolve our programs in support of the long-term interests of all stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n Rev. Al Sharpton \u2014 the civil rights leader who supported Bryant\u2019s Target boycott \u2014 said the company boycotts are one of the most effective ways to push back against the rollback.<\/p>\n \u201cThe success of the Montgomery boycott is that it changed the law,\u201d said Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, referencing the famous mid-1950s bus boycott to protest segregation. \u201cWe can’t just do things as a grievance, we must go for their bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n It is hard to tell exactly how much boycotts are hurting companies\u2019 bottom lines. But Target\u2019s CEO Brian Cornell in May acknowledged that at least some of its sales drop<\/a>, including a quarterly sales decrease by 2.8 percent<\/a>, was due to \u201cheadwinds\u201d including \u201cthe reaction to the updates we shared on Belonging in January,\u201d referring to the company\u2019s announcement to end their DEI programs, along with consumer confidence and concerns around tariffs.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Target told POLITICO that the company is \u201cabsolutely dedicated to fostering inclusivity for everyone \u2014 our team members, our guests and our supply partners.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToday, we are proud of the progress we\u2019ve made since 2020 and believe it has allowed us to better serve the needs of our customers,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n But Sharpton said the boycott is still a powerful tool. <\/p>\n \u201cThe power the Black church has is that the people that attend church are your major consumers,\u201d said Sharpton. \u201cYou go to a Black church that has 2,000 people and 1,900 of them are the ones that shop.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharpton has his own demonstration planned for this summer \u2014 a rally on Wall Street on Aug. 28, the 62nd anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his renowned \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech. Sharpton said he chose the date for the rally on Wall Street intentionally.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted this year to show the pressure that we’re putting on these companies with DEI, to go right to the bastion of industry and right where the stock exchange is and say to them that if you do not want to have diversity \u2014 in your boardroom, with your contracts and your employment \u2014 then you will not have diversity in your consumer base,\u201d said Sharpton.<\/p>\n But the boycotts do present challenges for church leaders. In some cases, Sharpton said, congregants have forgotten the boycotts are still on \u2014 and he says Trump is in part to blame for this.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that I learned during the Civil Rights Movement from [Rev. Jesse Jackson] and others is, you have to keep people’s attention,\u201d said Sharpton. \u201cBut there’s so much going on now, Trump and them are so good at flooding the zone. You\u2019ve got to make sure people don’t forget, \u2018I’m not supposed to be shopping at that store.\u2019 Keeping public attention is a challenge.”<\/p>\n But even with congregants who are engaged in the battle to retain diversity commitments across the country, Adam Clark, associate professor of theology at Xavier University, said the church cannot carry the burden alone, especially when the president has taken a stance.<\/p>\n \u201cThe attack on DEI is so much broader than the specific companies,\u201d said Clark. \u201cTrump is the culmination of all this type of white aggression against DEI. He has the authority to implement what’s been going on in certain parts of the country and he makes it federal law, and I don’t think the church by itself has the capacity to just overturn everything that’s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n