Target Boycott Minnesota Organizers Say Movement Is Not Over
Target boycott Minnesota organizers say the movement is still ongoing despite national reports that it ended. Activists held a press conference outside Target headquarters to address claims that the boycott had concluded.
Despite news circulating in national media that the Target boycott, now lasting more than 400 days, ended March 11, organizers of the national boycott in Minnesota say that is far from the truth. They claim the movement has been targeted for co-opting by activists outside the state.
State activists, including Monique Cullars-Doty and Dr. Nekima Levy Armstrong, held a press conference outside Target headquarters Wednesday to clear up rumors about the boycott’s status.
“This target boycott is not over. We are asking people to continue to stand with grassroots leadership in the state of Minnesota, where Target is actually headquartered, and not clout-chasers trying to co-opt our work,” Dr. Nekima Levy Armstrong said.
Armstrong is a co-founder of the national boycott that began in Minnesota in January 2025, along with Jaylani Hussein and Monique Cullars-Doty, after Target quickly scrapped its diversity, equity and inclusion model following Trump’s inauguration.
“They don’t speak for us. They didn’t stand in the gaps for us when George Floyd was killed or when Operation Metro Surge happened; we stood for us and with the community,” Armstrong said.
Since the boycott began, Target has seen a decline in sales and its stock price. Former Target CEO Brian Cornell stepped down, and the company’s current CEO, Michael Fiddelke, said the boycott was “one of the things” that hurt sales last year, according to the Associated Press.
Now, out-of-state activists, including Pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant, along with colleagues Tamkia Mallory and Nina Turner, held a press conference at noon Wednesday in Washington claiming the boycott against Target was over and that at least 75% of the demands had been met.
In a statement to the Star Tribune, Target said it is “pleased to be moving forward” and will “continue showing up as trusted neighbors while delivering results for … team members, guests and the more than 2,000 communities” it serves.
While Target has reported that it will give $2 billion to Black-owned businesses and donate millions to Black education by Easter, organizers say no immediate concessions have been made and the DEI program has not been reinstated.
“Nothing has changed today. This is an effort to try to turn or use people. And we have seen that before in history,” Hussein, co-founder of the boycott and executive director of CAIR-MN, said. “We have seen boycotts before where people claim to speak for the community, and all they do is cross the picket lines.”
Pastor Bryant led a 40-day fast in Georgia last March, calling on others to boycott the company during Lent. During that time, he participated in press interviews with CNN, The Breakfast Club and other outlets, leaving leaders in Minnesota to believe the effort was more about publicity.
“The other reason that this is so important is because of the historical erasure of black women on the front lines,” Armstrong said. “If you look at what happened during the civil rights movement, it was the black women organizing behind the scenes that helped it become an actual movement. Their faces we don’t know, their stories we don’t know, because they’ve been effectively erased by the media and men in charge.”
Armstrong and her co-founders said they were never consulted before the “decision” to end the boycott and believe Bryant is attempting to co-opt a movement that predated his involvement.
“What did he get? I don’t believe he did it for nothing; he didn’t do it out of goodwill,” Cullars-Doty, founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, said. “What would motivate him to end the target boycott, knowing that we would respond, knowing he’s going to look like a fool. He’s an attention whore.”
News of the announcement spread quickly, with both national and local media outlets covering the development, including the Minnesota Star Tribune. Organizers said the coverage initially failed to acknowledge the Minnesota leaders as founders of the movement and used a photo of Armstrong’s 8-year-old daughter as the main image, a decision that has since been updated.
“I saw the headline, I saw the story. I saw my daughter’s picture holding this sign and I was livid.”
Armstrong said she contacted Star Tribune CEO Steve Grove to share concerns, noting she had previously spoken with the reporter who wrote the story and believes the omission was intentional.
“Writing that article without including the founders was a serious journalistic failure. We were referenced in passing as if we were irrelevant.”
In response to questions about the coverage, the Minnesota Star Tribune said it attempted to contact Armstrong shortly after publishing its initial breaking news story about Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant’s announcement that the boycott had ended.
“The Minnesota Star Tribune attempted to contact Nekimas Levy Armstrong immediately after we and other national outlets posted a breaking news story about Jamal Harrison Bryant’s call to end the national boycott against Target,” the newsroom said in a statement to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. “We updated our story, as we often do on breaking news events, to reflect the differing views of Ms. Levy Armstrong shortly after conducting an interview with her. We are continuing to report on this story.”
The newspaper also addressed concerns about a photo used in the original article that showed Armstrong’s daughter at a protest. The Star Tribune said the image was taken at a public demonstration and the child was not identified in the caption, noting that consent is not required to publish such photos. However, the outlet said it replaced the image after speaking with Armstrong.
The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder has reached out to Pastor Bryant and Target for comment but has not yet received a response.
“We’re not going to let a 2-bit, fake pastor hijack a movement built on the blood, sweat, and tears of the people of the state of Minnesota,” Armstrong said. “Pastor Jamal Bryant is not the leader of the nationwide target boycott.”
Izzy Canizares is a freelance journalist and contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect a modified version of a quote from Dr. Nekima Levy Armstrong. The original quote contained characterizations about an individual journalist that did not meet our editorial standards. The substance of Dr. Armstrong’s criticism, that the Star Tribune’s coverage initially failed to name her as a founder of the boycott, has been preserved.