'This is the only way to get real change': How Black Americans are using their purchasing power as a means of protest on #BlackOutDay2020
The #BlackOutDay2020 movement and Blackout Coalition were started by a Texas man named Calvin Martyr as an effort to reveal the impact of the Black dollar and to further unify the Black community on the basis of economic power. “Our mission is to create an international community of economic solidarity and national consciousness unified around our common experience and ancestry as Emancipated Peoples of America,” a statement on the Blackout Day website reads.
According to a 2019 Nielsen report about Black consumers, the purchasing power of Black Americans is over $1 trillion. In a video on Instagram, Martyr explains how keeping that money within...
Blackout Day 2020 sweeps the Triangle, consumers urged to support only Black-owned businesses
"Corporations realize that Black consumerism is powerful," said Dr. Henry McKoy, professor and director of Entrepreneurship and Small Business at North Carolina Central University. "The Black dollar is everywhere."
According to Nielsen's 2018 study, African American's make up nearly 14 percent of the population, but over-index four top purchases: ethnic hair products and beauty aids ($54.4 million, or 85.65% of all purchases), women's fragrances ($152 million, 22.37% of all purchases), feminine hygiene products ($54.1 million, 21.04% of all purchases) and men's toiletries ($62...
Blackout Day economic protest encourages shoppers to buy only from Black-owned businesses Tuesday, boycott others
Americans have plans to send a message at the checkout counter on Tuesday amid renewed calls for racial equality across the country.
Tuesday, July 7, has been designated Blackout Day, a call to action and “day of solidarity in America where not one Black person in America spends a dollar" outside of businesses owned by Black people, according to the movement's official website.
The initiative comes in the wake of protests against police brutality and renewed attention to the nation's decades-long racial wealth gap. As society has awakened to unfairness plaguing Black people in America, Black-owned businesses are getting showered with support in a loosely connected push for social and economic justice.
Reshauna Striggles, a protest leader in Arizona, told the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, that people can fight systemic racism by patronizing Black- and...
12 Black Businesses To Support For Blackout Day 2020
George Floyd's death was 'murder'
(CNN)Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo says the death of George Floyd was "murder" and that the officer who was seen pressing his knee into Floyd's neck "knew what he was doing" because he had taken specific training on preventing "positional asphyxiation," or suffocation.
She created a platform to mobilize consumers to buy Black. In 3 days they spent over half a million dollars
As Black Lives Matter protests continue to take place around the world, Kezia Williams, an entrepreneur and executive, is urging activists and allies to exercise their economic power by spending more money with Black-owned businesses.
On Juneteenth, Williams launched the #MyBlackReceipt initiative to encourage consumers to buy from Black-owned companies and upload the receipts of their purchases to the myblackreceipt.com platform. The goal, Williams says, is to get Black customers and allies to spend at least $5 million with Black businesses from Juneteenth to July 6, a day before “Blackout Day” in which community leaders are asking Black consumers and allies to not spend any money for a day in hopes that the economic solidarity will raise awareness about racial injustice.
“As my team and I were watching the civil unrest unfold in the news, we were asking ourselves, ‘How can we be useful during this time,’” says...
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(CNN)There's a growing group of dissenters who believe Americans can survive without law enforcement as we know it. And Americans, those dissenters believe, may even be better off without it.
Black-Owned Restaurant Lists Circulating the Internet, Organized by City
As many of us have been inspired to stand in solidarity with the Black community, so has food media. Across the country, restaurant critics, writers, and local food lovers have been pulling together extensive lists highlighting Black-owned businesses in their respective cities. We wanted to share what they’re creating, from Google spreadsheets with updates on take-out/delivery options and GoFundMe links to websites that have long been celebrating Black-owned businesses and owners.
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- Google spreadsheet of coffee shops, bakeries, and restaurants open for take-out and delivery in the Bay Area, with information on merch, gift cards, GoFundMe pages, and more. Created by Soleil Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle
- Our article celebrating bakeries, restaurants, bars, and shops in Oakland. Reported and written by Ryan Walker-Hartshorn of BA.
- Google spreadsheet of coffee shops, bakeries,...
