Week 3: Civil Disobedience, Economic Version
What can I do?
This week, I want to focus on using our dollars to send a message (or more than one message) to the businesses that support the causes I support as well as to those that act in opposition to my values. I do not understand why this form of protest (economic boycott) has fallen into disfavor in recent years–we know that it has been an essential part of successful protest movements in the past.
We all remember that it was part of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s, right? The Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama in 1955-56 lasted 13 months, stripped the regional public transit authority of thousands of dollars per day, and ended with a US Supreme Court decision declaring bus segregation unconstitutional. The success of the Montgomery bus boycott led to the embrace of other economic boycotts by civil rights leaders, including business boycotts in Nashville and Birmingham in the early 1960’s.
Boycotts and disinvestments in South Africa were also effective in bringing about the end of apartheid in that country in 1994. The disinvestment movement lasted a long time, but by the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, American college students began to pressure their colleges and universities to stop their investments in South African businesses and national securities. This pressure spread to local and state governments, and, eventually, the US Congress passed the 1986 Anti-Apartheid Act, even overriding the veto of Pres. Reagan to enact it into law.
When I taught Civics, I loved to use the March for our Lives movement as a role model for many different forms of protest, including their use of economic boycotts. Shortly after the Parkland, Florida school shooting in 2018, student organizers called for a boycott against businesses that supported the National Rifle Association, which led to many businesses dropping their discounts for NRA card-holding members, and discontinuing NRA-branded credit cards. In my opinion, the most successful business response (from a gun safety perspective), was from Dick’s Sporting Goods, who increased the restrictions on gun sales beyond what they had implemented following the Sandy Hook shootings in 2011. While many businesses have since reversed their short-lived response to school gun violence, Dick’s has stood firm and has found that their policy changes have not harmed their bottom line for shareholders.
There was also a rapid and coordinated response by the business community against the rise of so-called “bathroom bills” in 2014-2017 in states, including North Carolina and Indiana, that targeted transgendered individuals in public facilities–largely students in schools–by insisting that students could only use the bathroom whose gender conformed to their gender assigned at birth. Lots of national companies, including American Airlines, Apple, Intel, and Nike, protested the bills and vowed to reduce their business footprint in those states by withdrawing employees and expansions. The NCAA vowed to withhold tournaments from both North Carolina and Indiana, who had passed a similar bill, and businesses who were worried about the impact on tourism in these states pressured lawmakers. Both Indiana and North Carolina reversed these early bathroom bills in the next few years, confirming the impact that economic pressure can bring for positive social-justice-oriented change. (At least for now. There is a new movement in states to follow the lead of the Trump administration in passing laws further marginalizing and reducing protections for transgender folks.)
So, what can we do? We can be mindful of the messages we send with both our spending and with the withholding of our purchasing power so that we support businesses whose values align with ours. There is a growing movement in which organizations are identifying businesses whose policies and investments reflect or contrast with our values, as well as organizing general or limited boycotts. A few that I have found include the February 3 “Day Without Immigrants,” which was designed to demonstrate the impact immigrants have on the economy by removing them from participation for a single day.
Likewise, the People’s Union has called for a 24 Hour Economic Blackout next week on February 28. They call for withholding our dollars from all purchases (except for absolute necessities such as groceries and medicine), both in person and online. On a Friday payday, that might be more challenging than it seems!
Learn more here: https://theonecalledjai.com/
The NAACP has formed the Black Consumer Advisory to track companies that are either maintaining or dismantling their DEI initiatives and programming, and are asking Black Americans to pledge to avoid shopping or supporting businesses based on their position on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. https://naacp.org/campaigns/black-consumer-advisory
While this project specifically appeals to Black consumers, there is no reason to not join in as an ally of any race. The NAACP has long worked toward an Inclusive Economy. https://naacp.org/issues/inclusive-economy
There has also emerged a boycott against Tesla and any other Musk-owned or controlled companies (although Tesla is the most consumer-facing of his many enterprises.) Protests have popped up at Tesla dealerships across the country, and there is a growing resale market for used Teslas and Cybertrucks as owners seek to divest from their personal vehicles. https://electrek.co/2025/02/13/tesla-takeover-protests-pla-at-stores-this-weekend-tesla-takeover/
Will this even matter? This reporter thinks so: https://slate.com/business/2025/02/elon-musk-tesla-stock-valuation-consumer-boycott.html
So, I do not own a Tesla to unload, but I can participate in both the NAACP Black Consumer Advisory and next week’s 24 Hour Economic Boycott. I am trying to shop more locally and in-person and less Amazon. I am looking more skeptically at the media I consume and trying to invest in more media outlets that are aggressively reporting the goings-on of the administration. (I mentioned some of these two weeks ago.)
So, what are YOU doing, especially economically? Share your ideas and actions, and I will add them to the resource page I am building, which should be up within the next week.
Stay warm, have a good week!