Let me be clear: no one man called this boycott, and no one man gets to call it off.

On January 24, 2025, Target announced it was dismantling its DEI commitments - ending the REACH initiative, rebranding its Supplier Diversity program, and walking away from the $2 billion pledge it made to Black-owned businesses in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. It was a betrayal. And the Black community responded accordingly.

We stopped spending our money there. We redirected our dollars. We showed up - not because a pastor told us to, but because we knew our power and we chose to use it. Over 200,000 people took the pledge. Foot traffic at Target fell 9% year-over-year in February 2025 and 6.5% in March. Their stock had already cratered 61% from its 2021 peak. Corporate America was watching, and they were feeling it.

Those words came from Chantel Powell, founder of Play Pits, a Black-owned body care brand that had been on Target shelves since 2022. She reported a 30% drop in store sales during the boycott. Let that land. The businesses we were trying to protect were absorbing real financial pain - not Target's executives, not the board, not Brian Cornell. Our people.

And then, just days ago, Rev. Jamal Bryant stood at a press conference in Washington, D.C., declared "victory," and said the boycott was over. He praised Target for what he described as a reaffirmed commitment to invest $2 billion in Black-owned businesses - a pledge they originally made in 2021 and were supposed to have fulfilled by the end of 2025.

Let me say this plainly: Target did not reverse its DEI rollback. Target did not reinstate its REACH initiative. Target did not restore its Supplier Diversity program. Target's own spokesperson confirmed no policies were reversed or reinstated as a result of any conversations with leadership. What Bryant is calling a "victory" is Target claiming credit for finishing a commitment that was already due - a commitment they had already abandoned the spirit of when they gutted the programs designed to uphold it.

He did not lead this - and the original organizers know it

The boycott was not born in an Atlanta megachurch. It was born in Minneapolis - where George Floyd was murdered, where Target is headquartered, and where community leaders like Nekima Levy Armstrong, Jaylani Hussein, and Monique Cullars-Doty organized the ground-level infrastructure for this movement beginning in January 2025. Armstrong has stated directly that Bryant does not lead this boycott and does not speak for the movement. Hussein was equally blunt: "The facts are simple. Target has not reversed its decisions, it has not met the demands of the boycott, and therefore the boycott continues."

Communities across this country did not endure a year of inconvenience, redirect their spending, and watch Black business owners absorb losses - just to accept a press conference and a handshake photo as a settlement. That is not how economic power works. That is not how movements work.

The damage to Black business is real and ongoing

This is not abstract. Black-owned brands that built their distribution models around Target's shelf space have been scrambling. Kiara Imani Will, creator of LikeU Cards, reported her brand was pulled from shelves. The founders of Black Men Smile, whose message of Black joy was literally part of Target's 2023 Black History Month collection, walked away from further collaboration on principle. BLK & Bold co-founder Pernell Cezar was disappointed. The Atlanta mental health nonprofit Black Men Smile lost a partnership pathway.

These are not statistics. These are businesses built by Black hands, backed by Black dollars, given a platform by a corporation that then decided political winds mattered more than its word. And some of those businesses have not recovered. A few meetings with the new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, and a pledge to "move forward" does not erase that harm.

What we are demanding - and why we are not moving

The original demands of this boycott have not been met. We are calling for Target to restore and strengthen its DEI commitments - not rebrand them. We are calling for the reinstatement of the Supplier Diversity program in substance, not just name. We are calling for accountability to the Black entrepreneurs whose livelihoods were disrupted. And we are calling for transparency about where the $2 billion actually went, who received it, and how many of those brand partnerships are still active today.

Until those things happen, our money stays in our pockets. We buy directly from Black-owned brands. We spend at retailers who did not abandon us when the political climate shifted. And we do not accept press conferences as policy.

A note to Rev. Bryant

With respect, your energy, your platform, and your willingness to stand publicly have been meaningful. The 40-day Lent fast mobilized real people. The Bullseye Black Market pop-ups in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and New York were a beautiful vision of Black economic independence. You helped amplify this movement. But amplifying a movement is not the same as owning it. And declaring it over when the underlying demands remain unmet does not serve the people this boycott was meant to protect. It serves Target's reputational reset under a new CEO. We see the difference.

The boycott continues. We are not going back. And we will not be told otherwise.

Kim M. Braud is a strategist, writer, and founder working at the intersection of economic power, cultural narrative, and community leadership. With expansive experience across financial services, entrepreneurship, and nonprofit leadership, her writing explores who controls systems, who benefits from them, and who gets left out. Her work centers on economic mobility, institutional accountability, and the stories we inherit, and the ones we choose to dismantle.