Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant on Target boycott ‘victory’ and the Black dollar’s power: ‘They’ve awakened a sleeping giant’

The Georgia megachurch leader called for a #TargetFast over its DEI rollback. Now Dollar General is next, he says, as consumers mobilize against Trump's policies

On 5 February, a month before lent, Jamal Harrison Bryant stepped up to the pulpit of his Atlanta area megachurch. Wearing a sweater bearing Muhammad Ali's likeness and standing behind a lectern branded with a Black power fist clutching a cross, the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church railed against companies that rolled back their DEI initiatives to appease Donald Trump.

Explicitly, Bryant, 54, singled out Target - which, among other things, had pledged to invest $2bn in Black-owned businesses by the end of 2025 as corporate reparations after the murder of George Floyd - for going back on its word. He urged the conscientious Christian community" to link arms with his 10,000 church members and commit to a 40-day fast" from the company starting on Ash Wednesday.