*After nearly a year of organized protest, Pastor Jamal Bryant and a coalition of community leaders have officially brought the Target Fast boycott to a close.
The announcement came Wednesday following direct engagement with Target’s leadership team, including newly appointed CEO Michael Fiddelke, with Bryant’s group expressing satisfaction with the progress made.
“We are effectively, today, closing this chapter because we have other fights that we’ve got to see,” Bryant said. “Stay tuned for the next fight, but this fight for us has now reached its conclusion.”
The campaign, which accumulated over 300,000 signatures across the country, took shape after Target moved to scale back its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Bryant reported that three of the four demands his coalition put forward have been addressed. Those include progress on commitments to Black entrepreneurs, the launch of internal inclusion programs, and the development of an HBCU partnership designed to give students hands-on business training.
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Target’s existing Target Scholars program has channeled $10 million toward 1,000 HBCU students over a five-year span. Separately, a $2 billion commitment directed at Black-owned businesses is nearly complete, with Bryant indicating the total is on track to climb even higher by an additional $100 million before summer.
The coalition’s remaining ask — routing $250 million through Black-led financial institutions — has yet to be fulfilled, with Bryant noting that identifying banks equipped to handle that level of capital will take additional time.
A Target spokesperson said the company will continue “showing up as trusted neighbors while delivering results for our team members, guests, and the more than 2,000 communities in which we serve.”
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