Protests against police violence merged with protests against poor wages, racism and other grievances in retail outlets across the US on Friday, causing sporadic disruption on what is traditionally the year’s busiest shopping day.
Hundreds marched through San Francisco on Friday night, with some smashing bank and shop windows, causing shoppers to cower inside and the closure of a Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) station.
Police kept a close watch as demonstrators chanted “Black Friday doesn’t matter, black lives matter” during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Union Square. There were no immediate reports of arrests or injuries.
In Ferguson, the epicentre of protest, police arrested 15 people during a rally outside the police station.
Earlier protesters launched a campaign of retail boycotts across the US as a new tactic to vent anger at a Missouri grand jury’s decision to not indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen, in Ferguson in August.
Activists shut down a mall in St Louis and interrupted the Black Friday shopping frenzy. The peaceful actions against retail outlets contrasted with riots and store-burnings earlier in the week and marked an attempt to channel widespread resentment into commercial leverage as millions of post-Thanksgiving shoppers sought bargains.
Labour groups attempted their own retail boycott by picketing Walmart stores in cities such as Washington DC, Chicago, Tampa, Dallas, Minneapolis, Sacramento and Los Angeles to demand better wages and conditions – demands echoed by the activist and comedian Russell Brand.
A video produced by Ryan Coogler, director of Fruitvale Station, a film about a young black man shot dead by a white transport policeman in Oakland, explained the Ferguson campaign’s decision to target retail profits. “This season, show your worth,” it exhorted viewers. “Help stop police brutality by speaking a language everyone understands. Don’t shop November 28th.”
The boycott, which used the hashtag #BlackOutBlackFriday on Twitter, was an extension of the Black Lives Matter campaign. Dozens of activists rallied at major retailers, including Target and Walmart, in the St Louis area on Thanksgiving night, holding protest signs and chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot!”
On Friday afternoon a crowd of around 300 mostly young protesters, white and black, gathered inside the city’s big, upscale Galleria mall.
Two black female Macy’s employees burst from the department store and joined the marchers, shouting “Fuck it, shut this shit down” and prompting wild cheers from protesters, who echoed their cries.
Some activists lay on the floor in a “die-in” in solidarity with Brown, whose body was left in the street for more than four hours after the shooting last August.
“I am here today because I am sick and tired of the systemic racism that keeps on happening here in St Louis County,” said Elizabeth English, a 23-year-old student.
Gerardo Benavides, a 24-year-old social worker from Baltimore, said consumerism distracted people from things that really mattered: “Superficial, stress-fuelled shopping stops people from focusing on the real issues.”
Some shoppers supported the protest, others complained and stepped over the “die-in” to enter stores. As the mall was shut down, tempers frayed. “You guys are pathetic,” a middle-aged white woman shouted at activists. “Are you happy? Are you happy now? You all have ruined our entire experience!”
In New York, about 200 protestors briefly occupied the ground floor of Macy’s flagship store in Manhattan before marching on to Time Square. At least one arrest was reported.
Dozens of activists in Oakland tried a different tactic: blocking the doors of a train, and in some cases chaining themselves to it, to paralyse the train and shut down the Bart station in West Oakland. Dozens more picketed the station entrance above ground. Firefighters cut the chains and police removed the protestors after about two hours, allowing train services to resume.
Police arrested 14 people on the platform for interfering with railroad operations and trespassing.
Oakland, a venerable crucible of African American activism, has felt a special kinship with Ferguson because of the killing of Oscar Grant by a Bart transit police officer in 2009 – the story told in Coogler’s film. Some of Grant’s relatives have travelled to Ferguson.
Some of the Oakland protestors held signs saying “The War on Black people is gentrification”, linking the tech-driven surge in property prices and evictions in Oakland to police shootings.
In addition to Ferguson-related protests, Walmart found itself targeted by Our Walmart, an employees’ group. It predicted some kind of action in front of about 1,600 stores, but was unable to provide details.
Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesperson, downplayed the estimate. “This union group does have a long history providing inaccurate numbers in an effort to appear more relevant.”
Walmart employees told the Guardian they were unable to survive on meagre wages and fickle conditions. Some accused managers of callousness.
“I begged them for more hours. But they kept cutting everyone’s hours,” said Martha Sellers, 57, who has been a cashier at a Paramount Walmart store and who attended a Long Beach protest. “I’d go in and ask them for more hours. When I’d leave I could hear them snickering. I can’t even tell you how that felt. I was starving and they were snickering.”
They did not care if she ate or not, she said. “They just cared that I showed up to work and did my job. But I was so hungry that if I bent over and picked up a bit of trash on the floor I would have passed out.”
