Black church leaders take on MAGA: 'It's not a handout!'

As the Trump administration attempts to purge America of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, Black churches have taken a central lead in fighting back, Politico reported on Thursday.

"Shortly after Trump’s election, major companies like Meta and Google rolled back their DEI commitments made in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin," noted the report. "Within his first week of returning to office, Trump signed an executive order eliminating DEI practices in the federal workplace."

However, Black faith leaders responded by spearheading boycotts of some of these businesses, most notably Target, whose executives have acknowledged a hit to their sales following around 200,000 people signing on to the protest.

The architect of the Target boycott was Jamal Bryant, a pastor from Georgia.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion is not charity. It’s not a handout and the African American community is a valuable partner,” he said. “So we want to know: If you can take our dollars, how come you won’t stand with us?” He added, “The power the Black church has is that the people that attend church are your major consumers. You go to a Black church that has 2,000 people and 1,900 of them are the ones that shop.”

Dollar General, another retailer that has rolled back its DEI initiatives, faces similar heat.

Rev. Al Sharpton, a legendary civil rights activist, concurred with this assessment, invoking the bus boycott that brought about change after Rosa Parks' protest: “The success of the Montgomery boycott is that it changed the law. We can’t just do things as a grievance, we must go for their bottom line.”

Xavier University professor of theology Adam Clark, however, told Politico that Black churches' involvement won't be sufficient to win the fight.

“The attack on DEI is so much broader than the specific companies. Trump is the culmination of all this type of white aggression against DEI. He has the authority to implement what’s been going on in certain parts of the country and he makes it federal law, and I don’t think the church by itself has the capacity to just overturn everything that’s happening.”

The president has cracked down so aggressively on any mention of DEI that federal departments were at one point warned against even acknowledging Black History Month, and some companies that simply have "DEI" in their name for unrelated reasons fear reprisal.