Civil rights activists call for a Target boycott after retailer backs away from diversity programs

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Civil rights activists gathered outside the headquarters of Target Corp. on Thursday to call for a national boycott of the retailing giant over its decision to phase out its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Target announced last Friday that it would join competitor Walmart and a number of other prominent American brands in scaling back their DEI initiatives, which have come under attack from conservatives and the new White House of President Donald Trump.

Nekima Levy Armstrong, a veteran civil rights lawyer in Minneapolis and founder of the Racial Justice Network, joined other local activists and their supporters at a news conference to urge people to begin the boycott on Saturday, the first day of Black History Month. Many of the participants were regular Target shoppers until now, she said.

Levy Armstrong said they were “stunned” that Target, which increased its commitment to building a more diverse workforce in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis in 2020, backed away from its support of racial equity.

“We thought that they would hold the line. We thought that they would continue to stand for the values that we all hold dear,” she said. "But instead they acted cowardly, and they made the decision to bow down to the Trump administration. Well, we are here today saying we will not bow down. We will not step back, and we will not turn around.”

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on Islamic-American Relations, said that as a company based in the city where Floyd's murder sparked a national reckoning with racial injustice, Target must be called out.

“We here in Minneapolis today, the good people of the state, are saying to our friends all over the country, ‘If you were moved to do something good after the murder of George Floyd, it is time for you to stand up and boycott Target,’” Hussein said.

The organizers of the boycott include local Black Lives Matter groups. During the boycott announcement, some speakers cut up their distinctive red Target charge cards, while others called on DEI supporters to shop at Costco, which reaffirmed its commitment to DEI last week.

Despite the anger with Target, the news conference-turned-rally took on a festive atmosphere, with a New Orleans-style brass band playing protest songs like Bob Marley's “Get Up, Stand Up.” Participants circled up for a prayer before the speeches began.

Target, which long was viewed as a strong advocate for the rights of Black and LGBTQ+ people, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday on the call for a boycott. But in a memo to employees last week, Kiera Fernandez, Target’s chief community impact and equity officer, described the company's decision to retire its diversity goals as a “next chapter” in the company’s human resource and customer engagement strategy.

“And as a retailer that serves millions of consumers every day, we understand the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape, now and in the future,” she wrote.

Levy Armstrong said Target has not reached out to her or other local Black leaders. She said they expected more from Target, and now feel like everything it had done in support of people of color was just window dressing. The starting point for any conversation, she said, would be for the company reverse its decision immediately.

“Target knows what its presence and its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion means to this community," Levy Armstrong said. “So that is why we are focusing on Target first. But that does not mean that those other businesses should not also be held accountable. All of those businesses should be held accountable, and they should not have access to our dollars.”

Speakers also called on long-established civil rights groups that have benefited from Target’s philanthropy, such as the NAACP and the Urban League, to join the opposition to Target’s decision. Levy Armstrong and Hussein said they plan to partner with other national organizations to get the word out about the boycott and to take other steps they were not yet ready to share publicly.

Ever since calls for a boycott began circulating on social media, the founders of several Black-owned businesses that sell their products in Target stores or through the company's online platforms have expressed concern that a broad boycott might hurt them. They included the owners of hair care brands The Doux and Camille Rose, and the cosmetics brand Lip Bar.

The Minneapolis organizers said Black consumers and their white allies can continue to support those companies while cutting Target out.

“We are asking people to go on their websites and buy directly from those Black companies, because Target will not see a single one of our Black dollars,” Levy Armstrong said.

Becky Dankowski, center, of Minneapolis, holds an anti-Target sign to traffic while Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, takes a phone call before a news conference outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Assata Armstrong, left, 7, greets her brother PJ Pounds before a news conference outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

A group of community advocates and Black Lives Matter members pray before a news conference outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

A community member holds a sign calling for a national boycott of Target stores during a news conference outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Security stands by inside Target Corporation's headquarters while a news conference organized by Black Lives Matter Minnesota is underway Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Community members listen during a news conference organized by Black Lives Matter Minnesota outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

A community advocate cuts a Target credit card during a news conference outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Community members listen during a news conference organized by Black Lives Matter Minnesota outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Community members chant during a news conference outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Becky Dankowski, center, of Minneapolis, who said she was a long-time customer, holds an anti-Target sign during a news conference outside Target Corporation's headquarters Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.

Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away.

“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.

An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan.

A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun's glare.

Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.

Blue Ghost — named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies — had its size and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6 (2 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) wide, providing extra stability, according to the company.

Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade.

Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said the lander skipped over hazards including boulders to land safely. Allensworth said the team continued to analyze the data to figure out the lander's exact position, but all indications suggest it landed within the 328-foot (100-meter) target zone in Mare Crisium.

The demos should get two weeks of run time, before lunar daytime ends and the lander shuts down.

It carried a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface. Also on board: a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust — a scourge for NASA’s long-ago Apollo moonwalkers, who got it caked all over their spacesuits and equipment.

On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around the moon, with detailed shots of the moon's gray pockmarked surface. At the same time, an on-board receiver tracked and acquired signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers.

The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for a piece of lunar business.

Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer (4 meters tall) built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over.

Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines' lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972.

A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023.

The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades.

NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year, realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency's top science officer Nicky Fox.

“It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon," Fox said.

Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim.

Kim said everything went like clockwork.

“We got some moon dust on our boots," Kim said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost after touching down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost after touching down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)

Staff at the Mission Control outside Austin, Texas celebrating as lunar lander Blue Ghost touches down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA, Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)

Staff at the Mission Control outside Austin, Texas celebrating as lunar lander Blue Ghost touches down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA, Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)

In this rendering private lunar lander Blue Ghost touches down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)