Understanding that some people living in food deserts may not be able to stop shopping at Dollar General, megachurch Pastor Jamal Bryant has called for an electronic protest of the popular discount chain store starting immediately amid an ongoing boycott of retail giant Target for scaling back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
“Like other corporations, Dollar General has bowed to pressure from the Trump administration and rolled back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives,” Bryant, who leads New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, told USA Today.
“Dollar General also needs to be held accountable for failing to invest in the very black and low-income communities that make up the backbone of their customer base. This isn’t just a corporate retreat — it’s a betrayal of the people they profit from.”
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Bryant is now advocating “a mass technological campaign of telephone and e-mail and social media.” Supporters are being asked to bombard the retailer’s phone lines and email and use social media to force Dollar General to reinstate the company’s DEI initiatives.
It’s different from the complete boycott campaign Bryant is pushing on Target after he rejected an offer by the company last month to settle the DEI dispute by fulfilling its pledge to invest $2 billion in black-owned businesses by July 31.
That rejection also followed a 40-day protest fast by Bryant and his supporters, which included not shopping at Target. That effort is part of a larger grassroots Target Fast campaign. The campaign called on Target to honor not just a pledge to invest $2 billion into black-owned businesses but also to deposit “250 million amongst any of our 23 black banks,” restore “the franchise commitment to DEI,” and “pipeline community centers at 10 HBCU to teach retail business at every level.”
Bryant has argued that anything less isn’t acceptable to end the boycott.
Several large U.S.-based corporations have reevaluated their DEI policies in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling, which found that the admissions policies of the University of North Carolina and Harvard University that use race as a factor were unconstitutional. Bryant hadn’t commented on why he was only focusing the boycott’s attention on Target. But now it appears it is expanding.
With more than 20,000 stores across the country, Bryant argued that the protest of Dollar General over its DEI policy is different to protect vulnerable populations living in places with limited access to healthy food, also known as food deserts.
In some communities served by Dollar General, Bryant noted that the discount store is the only place where people can get fresh fruits and vegetables. He said he wants to “really make an impact without having an adverse impact on those who really need a Dollar General.”
Bryant is pushing for Dollar General to restore and strengthen DEI infrastructure, create a community reinvestment fund, expand contracts to black-owned vendors, and address systemic racism within Dollar General’s corporate culture.
The Georgia pastor pointed to the ongoing protest of Tesla to highlight why even people who don’t shop at Dollar General can make a difference by supporting the cause.
“The reality is the amount of people who protest Tesla dealerships, those people don’t drive Teslas,” he said of the car company that has been hit with a recent string of destruction and vandalism in opposition to the political involvement of its CEO, Elon Musk. “The impact of the brand is still tarnished, so we think we’ve found there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
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