In many cities this Black Friday weekend, long lines didn’t form outside retail giants such as Target. Instead, it was pickets, rallies, and holiday caroling organized as part of the “We Ain’t Buying It” campaign that were to be found outside Target stores in places such as Atlanta, Washington, and New York.
This holiday season, faith, political, and cultural leaders have come together to form the We Ain’t Buying It coalition with the goal of organizing boycotts against Target, Home Depot, and Amazon. These companies have been chosen for their reversal on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and their support for the MAGA agenda.
According to the campaign website, 20% of annual sales for large corporations come during the post-Thanksgiving Black Friday weekend, making it the best time to send a message to these companies to “stand up and stop enabling harm for profit.”
Atlanta
On Black Friday, organizers from Black Voters Matter and Atlanta Friends of People’s World gathered outside the Edgewood Plaza Target location with banners and signs to let drivers and shoppers know of the campaign. In red and black paint, the words “No DEI? No dollars!” were displayed on a big banner to those passing the store on Moreland Avenue.
Brittany, an organizer with Black Voters Matter, told People’s World that if Target continues to “suppress, oppress, and discriminate against communities” in need, then the call to boycott the company will remain in place.
Brittany was one of the many activists on the busy Atlanta street holding signs and banners to alert shoppers as they passed by the store. Every wave of traffic offered honks of support as cars passed by the picket. In return, the picketers cheered back and chanted in support of DEI and withholding money from Target.
Another local activist, Emma, spoke to People’s World about her experience shopping at Target in recent years. Despite carrying LGBTQ-supportive products in years past, Emma reported that in the past year, “there was no representation and no rainbow products.”
These changes made her angry, and with the Target boycott in full effect, she has chosen to withhold her money from the company until it again includes diverse backgrounds in its product lineup.
Washington
On the Saturday following Black Friday in D.C, leaders from the National Boycott Target Organizing Committee joined the local Boycott Target D.C. coalition for a rally and picket in front of the store in the Columbia Heights neighborhood.
Rally-goers emphasized that the local leaders, which include Black clergy, community activists, and a range of organizations, have been picketing and leafleting in front of the same store for 36 weeks straight.
Tamika Mallory of Until Freedom noted that the recently released unemployment numbers “show that over 800,000 Black women are currently out of work,” likely due to federal layoffs and DEI rollbacks at companies like Target.
Rev. Jamal Bryant said, “History will have to record that the New Civil Rights Movement was not birthed out of Selma, not out of Montgomery, not out of Nashville, not out of Greensboro, not out of Atlanta, but out of Washington, D.C.”
He further made the international connection, saying, “If this is a great call for democracy, it would be an onus of responsibility to call for that same democracy for our brothers and sisters in Palestine, for those who have lost protections from Haiti.
“We have to say something of those who are yearning to breathe free in Jamaica, we cannot forget those who are in Sudan and in Somalia, we cannot forget those who are in the Congo, who are on the Southside of Chicago, and in Memphis.”
Picketers eventually went inside the D.C. mall, which houses the Target store, and brought music and dance into the lobby area while a large banner dropped from the top floor with large letters saying “Boycott” right next to the Target bullseye logo. D.C. Police eventually dispersed the crowd by pulling the building’s fire alarm and shutting the entire mall down, pushing shoppers out of Target.
The local coalition who gathered alongside the national and local boycott leaders were the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, the D.C. chapters of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) and Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), Generation Union, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, Free D.C., D.C. Jobs with Justice, the Claudia Jones School for Political Education, John Wesley AME Zion Church, Fellowship Baptist Church, The Village Church, Faith Strategies, Washington Teachers’ Union, DMV Working Families Party, D.C. for Democracy, D.C. for Palestine, the D.C. chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, The Festival Center, D.C. Poor People’s Campaign, and The Center for Racial Equity and Justice.
Performers included Freedom Futures Collective, D.C. Labor Chorus, D.C. Street Activist Band, and Ayanna Gregory, the daughter of late comedian, activist, and actor Dick Gregory.
New York
Despite the New York City rain on Sunday, members of the Brooklyn and Queens clubs of the Communist Party USA joined forces to amplify the boycott at the Jamaica Avenue Target.
Jamaica, a diverse neighborhood that is among the largest in the city by population and land area, is just over half Black. Set up at the entrance to the Target store with a table of leaflets and a couple of signs reading “Shop Local” and “Don’t Shop at Target; diversity is good, rainbows are beautiful,” the picketers were well-received by would-be shoppers.
In response to hearing a picketer describe Target’s racist actions, one woman remarked, “Say no more,” before turning around and leaving. Several more people followed suit throughout the picket. One couple entered through one door, saw the picket, and left through the other, the girlfriend teasing the boyfriend into leaving in solidarity, despite the long walk in the rain they took to get there.
Another man struck up a conversation at the picket line, questioning why security allowed the picket to go on indoors on store property. Indeed, several NYPD officers rode the store’s escalators up and down for an hour and a half before appearing half a dozen strong to kick the picketers to the curb.
Keeping up the pressure
While pickets are happening in various cities, the campaign says people can join in the effort in several different ways. The most prominent ask is that they withhold their holiday shopping dollars from these companies, but the campaign has also put together social media resources to help spread the message.
Another key theme of the campaign is asking shoppers to redirect their spending this holiday season toward small and local businesses.
While the companies targeted by the boycott have landed on the do-not-buy list for particular offenses unique to them, they have all chosen profit over people and planet. The We Ain’t Buying It campaign is an attempt by organizers all over the country to flip that reality on its head and put the needs of all people—especially, in this moment, Black, queer, and immigrant workers—first.
Thanks partially to the ongoing boycott, Target has faced slowing sales in 2025, and its CEO had to step down recently as a result of the company’s falling profits. This shopping season campaign aims to strike another blow at the company and force it to revive its DEI initiatives and policies.
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