The protest was organized by The People’s Union USA, which appears to have been founded by a man named John Schwarz and is a “movement of people, unionizing to take back control of our economy, government and future of our country” and fight against corruption and exploitation, according to its website. Friday’s blackout is its first major action.
“For one day we show them who really holds the power,” the website reads.
The group has shared a rolling schedule of weeklong boycotts of specific companies over the coming weeks, including a boycott of Amazon March 7–14, followed by others aimed at Walmart, Nestle, McDonald’s, General Mills, and Target.
Nicole Obi, president and CEO of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, said she supports the one-day effort as a demonstration that people coming together can have impact, and it “has potential to be catalytic towards ongoing efforts,” Obi said. While people can withhold their dollars from companies that don’t reflect their values, Obi said, BECMA is also urging people to support Black-owned businesses, on Friday and beyond.
Sustained efforts to support Black-owned, diverse, and local businesses could also have tremendous economic benefits, Obi said, citing a 2021 Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation report that closing Massachusetts’ racial wealth gap could grow the state’s economy by $25 billion in five years.
“I’d like for folks to, rather than going back to their old habits, actually live out their values by doing what we’ve been encouraging folks to do,” she said.
“That energy … use it for positive things, by actually supporting the organizations that are, in many cases, being affected and will still be affected after the boycott is over,” she said.
The economic blackout, not surprisingly, drew its fair share of detractors.
Erin McGarry, a 56-year-old hospital executive who lives in Canton, said she saved her Amazon cart of more than $400 worth of items to purchase Friday in her own protest of the boycott. She said she thinks it’s “a bit silly” to believe one day could have much of an impact, and she sees the corporations that are the main targets of the day as essential and beneficial players in the economy.
“First of all, one day of the economic impact isn’t going to have a long-term effect on one of these large retail companies,” she said. “And secondly, these companies that they’re protesting are the mainstay of supply-side economics for the United States.”
Those who are participating in the protest, however, feel it could make some difference.
James Hornsby, an 85-year-old Episcopal clergyman and retired social worker from Fall River, said he decided to participate in the economic blackout to take a stand against greed, “immense corporate profits,” and rising rents.
“Excess profits are being made on the backs of poor and working people,” he said.
Hornsby pledged to not buy anything on Friday, and he said he’ll be looking more carefully at the purchases he makes year-round. He has cut down his beef consumption because of its impacts on climate change, he said, and he stopped buying a certain ice cream brand that his grandson informed him is owned or financed by a right-wing supporter of President Trump. The name of the brand was on the tip of his tongue Friday, but he couldn’t quite remember it.
“If you go shopping at any supermarket, it’s there,” he said. “But don’t go today.”
Fields, in Needham, said she has stopped shopping at Target since the corporation rolled back its diversity initiatives in late January.
She recalled several long-term boycotts and their impact — including those by the NAACP of businesses in Mississippi in the 1960s, which culminated in a landmark Supreme Court ruling that boycotting is a constitutionally protected act.
“The Montgomery Bus Boycott, that was a year of people walking instead of riding,” she said. “So, one day … that’s nothing. That’s not too much to sacrifice, one day of keeping my money in my pocket.”
Stella Tannenbaum can be reached at [email protected].
