Boycotts and Demonstrations: "My feet is tired, but my soul is rested."

   

March 12, 2025

"My feet is tired, but my soul is rested." This is how “Mother” Pollard, an elderly woman in Montgomery, Alabama, felt as she continued to walk on during the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. Thanks to this boycott, segregation on Montgomery’s busses came to an end, Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as a national leader, and “Mother” Pollard could finally rest her feet along with her soul.

Boycotts are a part of America’s story. It was a tactic used by those who opposed slavery in the first years of our nation. The “free produce” movement was a boycott of any goods produced with slave labor.

Lucretia Mott, abolitionist and suffragist, was instrumental in forming an association urging consumers to reject slave-produced goods. Mary Church Terrell, the American civil rights activist, journalist, teacher and one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree, spoke for Mott and her sisters in 1909, “How long the emancipation of the slave might have been delayed, had it not been for those Female Anti-Slavery Societies established largely through the efforts of Lucretia Mott, and other noble women like her, no human being can tell.”

On Friday Feb. 28 an "economic blackout" was to take place. It asked Americans to refrain from buying goods from major retailers for 24 hours. “No Amazon, no Walmart, no fast food, no gas. Not a single unnecessary dollar spent.” For essential purchases like food, medicine or emergency supplies, participants are encouraged to buy them from a local small business rather than a big-box retailer. The goal according to John Schwartz, one of the boycott’s leaders, is “to stand up to corporate greed, the billionaire tax breaks, all while we struggle just to get by ... For one day, we are going to finally turn the tables."

We can be certain corporations pulling down billions in profits from high prices will notice the boycott, but not candidly, publicly. Their [mis]information publicity hacks will duly report to shareholders, “No significant changes in purchase orders on the 28th. Business as usual.” Hannityized Fox commentators will pick through the vast spread of evidence on the boycott, cherry pick, and oh so seriously report with a smurk that Mr. and Mrs X from Lake Way Way Woebegone spent a good part of their day on the computer ordering shiny new stuff. They ordered a third coffee maker, another end table for garage storage, and two mattresses. Those mattresses will come in handy on nights when their 80-inch TV, or their cable, or their remote, or an unpaid bill is acting up and they can’t watch the Home Shopping network.

Boycotts and all forms of resistance to power — slave power, segregation power, authoritarian power — are difficult for historians to assess. All we can be sure of, however, is The Black Out Boycott of February 28, 2025, did enlist millions to participate in a personal way. They will act. They will remember their actions. Their soul will be rested for 24 hours.

— Gary Daily

Terre Haute