últimas notícias

With help from Tyler Weyant

NO COKE, PEPSI — African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Reginald T. Jackson and other Georgia faith leaders announced a national boycott today, starting April 7, of Coca-Cola, Home Depot and Delta — three Atlanta-based companies — over the state’s new voting law. The boycott could eventually extend to other companies including UPS, Aflac, Georgia Power and UBS.

President Joe Biden has called on Major League Baseball to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to the law, a move that Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp called “ridiculous.”

The new law, which requires ID for a mail ballot, is “inhumane,” Jackson told Nightly today. In addition to the boycotts, the AME church joined one of three lawsuits challenging the Georgia voting restrictions in federal courts.

Nightly spoke with Jackson today about the boycott and why he believes it’s necessary. This conversation has been edited.

Delta and Coca-Cola have already condemned the Georgia law, and the state’s legislative session is over, so the law can’t be reversed. What more can these companies do now?

The corporate community in Georgia is being irresponsible. Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola both came out publicly in opposition to the bill, which is frustrating because the bill has already passed. They initially praised these bills and said they were much better than they were. My conversations with state leaders is they claim that neither one of these companies spoke out in opposition to anything in the bill. So somebody is not telling the truth.

We need them to demonstrate their opposition to these bills. If we did not announce the boycott, I am not sure they would have made a public statement. We said to them there are four things they have to do in order for us not to have the boycott.

The first: Hold a press conference and speak in opposition to SB 202. The second thing — you have 361 bills and 47 states which in some way try to suppress the votes of Black and brown people — they have to speak out nationally against these bills in these other states. We expect them to use their lobbies and financial resources to fight these bills. The third thing: They have to publicly come out in support of H.R. 1 and H.R. 4, federal legislation that would counteract and nullify the bill passed in Georgia. Finally, we said to these corporations: You all have to help pay for this litigation.

In Martin Luther King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address, he talks about using boycotts over “Molotov cocktails” to achieve civil rights gains. Why is this strategy an important part of your fight against this Georgia bill?

The boycott is not something that I really want to do. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, I must have flown almost 100 times on Delta. I consider Delta my airline. So I really don’t want to boycott Delta. But if Delta can’t support me, there is no need for me to continue to support Delta.

I’m going to have to start flying United.

When we hold back our money from these corporations, it forces them to act. The Black community puts a ton of money in support of these corporations. I am convinced that if we start putting our dollars at Lowe’s or Pepsi or other airlines they will come around.

What are you going to do to get your congregation to the polls next November, given the new law?

We are going to make sure that people have the ID they need. We’re going to make sure they have transportation to get to the polls. We’re gonna to see that they know the candidates. We’re starting that now. We’re not waiting.

Blacks are a resilient people. One of the worst things you can do is get Black folk mad. If you get ’em mad they’re gonna turn out to vote no matter what. I almost wish that the ’22 election was now. Because Blacks are geared up and ready to vote. Republicans are gonna be stunned when they see how this effort has backfired.

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