Nationwide calls to boycott Black Friday and for consumers to "protest with you money" are growing following the grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilsonin the shooting death of Michael Brown.
Several Facebook pages have emergedcalling for shoppers to push for change byboycotting Black Friday shopping. Most have been pushing for the boycott since early this fall, but efforts to get consumers to quit spending on the day in protest have intensified since Monday.
Users on social media are using the hashtags #BoycottBlackFriday, #BlackoutBlackFriday, #NotOneDime, #BrownFriday, #HandsUpDontSpend and #NoJusticeNoProfit to spread the message.
A group called Blackout for Human Rights posted a Youtube video on Nov. 7 which shows a montage of police brutality accompanied by Andy William's "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year." The end of the video calls for viewers to "blackout" Black Friday and not shop on that day. "Help stop police brutality by $peaking a language everyone understands," the video continues. The group's website says it is "a network of concerned citizens who commit their energy and resources to immediately address the staggering level of human rights violations against fellow Americans throughout the United States. We have witnessed enough. We mourn the loss of men like Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, John Crawford and Michael Brown, who met their deaths at the hands of police officers."
The group's website also says Blackout Black Friday is the group's first nationwide day of action and retail boycott and that it will be organizing grassroots events across the country for people to come out and show solidarity with the movement.
On the Ferguson National Response Network webpage, where grassroots organizers have been putting together protests across the country following the grand jury decision, there is also a call for people to plan Blackout Black Friday protests in the form of a local mall demonstration. The website is calling for submissions of protests, pointing to the October protest that took place at Plaza Frontenac as an example of what a mall protest could look like.
Recent Nielsen data suggests that African Americans have a buying power of $1.1 trillion.
