INTERVIEW: Pastor Jamal Bryant On 40-Day Fast Against Target, Black America's Success, Politics + More

Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.

Morning everybody, It's the DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy. We are the breakfast Club. Law on the Rosa is here. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed have passed, Jamaal Bryant.

Welcome brother, Thank you sir. Good to be with y'all.

How are you feeling this morning, Bill?

Great?

Feeling good?

You flew in this I flew in last night.

Oh wow wow, get right after the service.

Right after service. Yeah, I was too scared. I was gonna be delayed. Delta got a whole lot going on right now. So I came in last night. Better safe than sorry.

You know you you one of the people who you You actually use social media to spread the word and spread what you're doing in a a in a great way.

When did you realize that you had to start doing it?

I think, uh, culture made it. The culture changes every four years. Church culture changes every twenty so the average church is fifteen years behind schedule. So to reach a younger demographic, I knew I had to hear that most churches Charlemagne broadcasts on Facebook.

Most young people are on.

TikTok, So it's a great disconnect. So social media really is that bridge to make the church relevant to a generation as disconnected and.

Church called you said, church cold changes every twenty years.

Yes, that look like I don't well by virtue of the fact that we're always running behind. So the average Black church wouldn't even know what AI is. You have to think most churches didn't even stream to the pandemic. Three thousand, three forty five churches closed in the pandemic simply because they didn't have online given they still passing the plate in writing checks and don't know.

How to download. So a lot of our churches have got to really run up to speed.

Wow, and how is that with the old congregation, the older congregation and the younger congregation with the TikTok and Facebook mesh.

Right, It is really a changing of the guard. That church is.

What was our grandmother's church with funeral home fans and fried chicken downstairs has shifted and the newer generation may not come to a physical building.

They may just stream.

So those who are in the old church said, are you ain't really doing it if you ain't in the building when we do everything online. So to say that you're not really connected to God because you're streaming and not sitting on the pew is a disconnective of what the culture is and where we're going.

What's your I mean, I know you get you always get people that love you or don't love you. They probably used to this, But what's your model every day when you're like, Okay, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna say something that people probably won't touch. What's that motivating factor? Because sometimes I think pastor stereo away from stuff because they don't want controversy, because they think controversy means that God is not within the house anymore.

Yeah, there's an incredible book called The Carriage to be Disliked. There's a whole lot of people always live for other people's affirmation. John Maxwell said, if you want to be like sell ice cream, but if you add sprinkles, somebody gonna be.

Allergic to it.

And so I think that the call to be great and a call to make a difference is realizing that you're going to go outside of the culture. When Doctor King was killed, his popularity was at its lowest. But now everybody got street signs and T shirts and a lot of times people don't recognize your greatness until after you make the impact. Maha Na Gandhi said, first they laugh at you, then they try to kill you, then

I wanted to ask one more back of the church question. Is a physical church necessarily needed?

Right?

And the reason I asked that is you talk about the amount of people at douch stream right. Yeah, it's difficult to get out if you have a bunch of kids and everything that's going on in this world, people are scared. Is it physical church needed now?

Absolutely? It is the power of unity.

There was an article a couple of weeks ago how social media has made this the loneliest Ageeople are connected online but disconnected from people.

So a lot of people are depressed.

A lot of people have anxiety, a lot of people have sleep disorder, a lot of people are confronting mental illness.

But online everything is up and we stuck.

But I think that that sense of community, that sense of connectedness, is still.

Necessary before we get into the target fast. I want to talk about Jesse Waters from Fox News. Yes, Jesse Water said you was racist, Yes, because you criticized black people who went to the White House for the Black History Month program.

Right, what do you say to that that he clearly doesn't know what racism is because I wasn't talking about white people. I would talk about black people who having an identity crisis, who were in their cheering for Black History Months. Under an administration that wants to make it illegal, no federal agency could honor Black History Months. So for them to have a program was absolutely crazy. And all the more, they raised up my picture Charlemagne after announcing

Black people don't have the capacity to be racist.

I wonder why they did hold your picture up in the.

Three of them.

Charlamagne, you've been to the White House on the way, Yeah, you've been to the White House never in your life, never under nobody.

No, oh wow, the vice president.

Let's take the vice president house. You're not going in the vice President's house with a picture or a sign holding up no stick. You barely can get a backpack in there. So for them to have three pictures of me in the east wing is absolutely crazy. And I don't know Jasmin Krackett is up there? How came Jefferson is up there? Clypun is up there? Why put my picture up? Uh?

So I think it was a targeted attack.

Uh.

And so for them to assume I wasn't gonna say anything was outlandish.

You did call them the spools who sat by the door though, yes, well that's a good thing.

Yeah, yeah, in the context of the book was funny and Charlamagne none of them negroes ready.

So they didn't even know what I was talking about.

Uh until I also called him as a runaway slave, which is and they didn't even understand the context of it because they're lost in their own misery of delusion.

You also said you reminded them that you ain't never scared, reminded them from the West side of Baltimore and told them they got a problem.

Pull up on you.

Has anybody reached out to you to have that conversation or whatever? That pull up you thought was?

No, they made videos. They don't have none of that in them.

This was the society, this was the fraternity of Calton Banks. None of them, none of them got that kind of DNA in them. So they all went on and did the social media posts.

Uh.

I don't even know if they knew what that meant. They needed a hood interpreter, a hood whisperer to tell them what it is that that meant. But they are so lost that they have that access to the president and didn't champion any of.

The needs of their own community.

So while they are celebrating Black History Month, they should have said to them, Hey, if we're going to celebrate it, we can't ban the books that record it. If we're going to celebrate it, then we can't penalize the public schools that want to teach it or fire the instructors who are really ambassadors for it. For them to have that access and that opportunity and not, in the words of Bishop Jackson, maximize the moment with just a waste.

You from Baltimore. How come you don't say church pew listen from Baltimore?

Yeah? Oh yeah, no, I'm local and global, so I got out. You got period?

Oh yeah, half and a half with wings period no, I got it.

All day long.

I'm Baltimore through and through, but I spent time in bolt In Atlanta, I went to more House, then I went to a Duke for a grad school, and then I went back to.

Bolton, don't you?

And what's your relationship like with the black pastors who were also working President Trump? Because I know you called them out before too, it was on their top. So is there, like, is there a working relationship because I think you do make points that people should listen to and they're there.

Yes, No, it's Nikki Giovanni's ego tripping.

A lot of people miss what the assignment is because they want the proximity of power without even really.

Having the real access of it.

And so it's got to go beyond what is the photo app or a handshake to say, oh, I know the president.

But now that you know them, what are you going to do about it?

So I think that there is a common ground for us to be able to meet, but you've got to make sure that you don't sell your own people out in the process.

To your point, That's why I never wanted to go to the white though, because it's just like for what like, I'm not going just for a photo op if I'm not presenting anything, or going with somebody who's presenting something.

With the point, I'm with you on fifty yard line.

But you represent too much people of influence who won't have that access. So when it is that you go there, this is an era Charlemagne where you would have more influence than any head of any civil rights organization. More people are listening to you. I don't want to call the names of organizations than a lot of those organizations.

Let's go a step further.

We step outside of this room, go down, says and ask people who was the head of this organization?

Head of that? They have no idea.

And so I think that you got to realize that the shaping of influence is different than the microphone that you would have entree to get into those spaces.

Would you meet with Trump?

I would meet with Trump, but I wouldn't go by myself. Got you.

I wouldn't go by myself. I'd have to take some credible people with me. So one, hold me accountable so we can all say what happened in that meeting, And two to make sure y'all ain't gonna play me like Zelenski ain't no way in the world you're gonna have all them cameras rolling and then say you ought to be grateful to be here, and how come you ain't got a suit on? You got to have some level of accountability in it. Would you pray before you go in there? So I pray before I pray in there.

Oh?

No, all of that, But there's no way I would just go in there.

Hey, let's ge should have handled it.

I think he did it.

What this administration has shown us is diplomacy is no longer honored. That was an argument in the barbershop that was not world leaders talking about the devastation of hundreds of thousands of lives. So I give him high accommendation that the argument should not be whether he had a suit on, is what are you going to do about innocent children being bombed? About seniors who are living out

I want to ask you to as a pastor, what makes you get involved in politics so much?

Because I see people.

I see a lot of pastores like to steer clear, steer stay clear from that.

Why do you like to get involved?

Well, one a lot of staying clear now because they don't know what this administration is going to do. This administration has already said that they want to take away five or one c threes. Uh, they want to look at anybody who stands with Palestine as a terrorist organization.

But I think that it's got to be.

A revolution comes with inconvenience, Uh, to know that it goes against the prick, and you got to stand on business.

Uh.

And to be a real profit is not you get a car, you get a house, you get money. A real profit biblically was to confront the king and say you out of order, you're not doing this right. And I think that you're going to find a whole lot of people emerging, and they are people who are doing it.

What has happened in the culture is we have confused notoriety with strength.

The most powerful preachers in every major city don't have megachurches, but they're in the community doing the hard work.

But they don't have press conferences.

They don't know the governor, they don't know the mayor, but the people in the community they serve on in respect them.

Let's talk about this, the forty day Fast of Target.

Yes, and this is.

Something that you're trying to put into play, and why I'm not trying you are putting.

It in another way. Yeah.

So people are asking, why do we pick Target when Walmart out of order, McDonald's out, or the John DIA's out, or the Bank of America's out of order, Amazon, Amazon is out of order? Is we wanted to go? The African proverb says, if you want to eat an elephant, do one.

Piece at a time.

So we picked Target first for say reasons. Number one, Target is headquartered in the same city George Floyd was killed. When George Floyd was killed, Target came out made an announcement that they're going to invest two billion dollars in the black business two billion drum roll, and it starts December of twenty twenty five. When Trump made the announcement January of twenty twenty five, they dishonored that commitment. So we wanted to hold them accountable because when they made

Singular day to twelve million day a day.

Number three, Target is on twenty seven college campuses and not one HBCU. Number four outside of the federal government. Target is the largest employer of black people. There are four hundred thousand black people on payroll and don't honor us. So we're given that kind of money, that much human capital, and to not honor us, I think is dismally disrespected. And because they're publicly traded, we wanted to see what

What do you call it fast and not a boycott?

Yeah, I called it a fast because this was a call to the Black church to become active. Something happened silently that scholars and historians are going to have to pay attention to the rise of Black Lives Matter. Charlemagne was the very first movement of civil rights for black people that was not berthed out of the church, the very first civil rights movement that happened that didn't have a religious leader at the front.

And so the Black church is going backwards.

This is the largest demographic of black people since we've been in America who don't go to church at all, who don't subscribe to organized religion.

We're at twenty eight percent.

The largest amount of Black people who self identify as atheists, who say they don't believe in God, don't believe in nothing. So this was a call specifically for Black Christians to show the younger generation our head is not in the sand. We're a part of it, but we're aligning it with prayer that those forty days is the high holy season for the Christian community.

We're praying because this is a spiritual warfare that we're under with JD.

Vance and Donald Trump, with all of the things that are happening with these exis executive orders. Marching is good, Protesting is necessary, Petitions are important. But if we don't bring a spiritual grounding to it, I think that we're gonna miss it.

During the Montgomery bus.

Boycott that lasts three hundred and eighty one days, what nobody talks about is for three hundred and eighty one days.

Every night they went back to the church for prayor so.

I think that in the movement you've got to have a faith entity intertwined in it in order for you to move forward.

What do you say to some of the people that have black products in Target? They say that, you know, because of this boycott. If a boycott happens and people are stopping to go to Target, that is going to affect their products even more.

I know.

We had the co founders of Rocke Roots on the Breakfast Club. They found the lit bar and they were saying that if people don't come into the store, which Target is their hugest manufactured the hugest buyer.

So what happens to those products?

Number one, the lit bar and all of those entities understand a new thing out called drop ship. You don't have to go in the physical store to help them. Because of that, In foresight, we partner with the US Black Chamber of Commerce.

So every person that goes.

To targetfast dot org, within an hour, I send you a digital directory of three hundred thousand black businesses across the country. So we don't want those businesses to be adversely impacted. We want people to support them, but do it online. I can support the lit Bar and not go into Target to do it. I can go online to do it. And so I think that as innovative and creative people as black people are, let's do it online.

I saw you.

Two things to what you're saying. So the first thing, when they were up here, they talked about the inventory and just how much money they have to put a head to be any store that comes out of their own pocket that they will lose out on if people do not if they're not supporting these companies or whatever. So even if you're buying it from their website, because they're already in contract for this amount of inventory alloted to Target, they lose out. They don't profit on that.

Now, yes, well that money has already been spent. A movement comes with inconvenience. It came that same argument happened in the Montgomery bus Boy Guide. The question was asked, what do we do for the bust mechanics.

Who were all black? So what they did is they pulled.

All of those bust mechanics out of Montgomery and set up garages at the churches. What nobody is talking about. It's four mechanic shops came out of it. So I understand that it's an inconvenience. I know we got to go a different route. But I would then say that's up. The ant is a business principle, let's buy more to cover what is that loss?

Companies take losses all the time.

But a group of misguided preachers went into Target in Detroit and say, let's just buy black inventory and come out you're still supporting Target. So I think that we've got to come away. Even if we got to raise the price in order to make the balance, Let's do it. One of the things that black people do wrong whenever it is with supporting black business, we always want a discount.

And I saw you my last thing to your point of like just up in the ante online. Yes, the women from Rocker Roots talked about how majority Ellen's I'm sorry, I her name defind me. I own Jamison and Ellen sellers talked about how even in Walmart's majority of their clients hele that they make a large amount of their money off of on those products. They don't have the access to the dot com So being able to walk into like it's just different in some of the lower

What about that?

Yeah, I think that we've got to ask ourselves what is the principle And is the principle more important than the profit? You've got a whole lot of churches who have space that is underutilized and under used. The fact that in twenty twenty five we don't have a minority on retail space to direct people on says that.

We got to re evaluate how we do business.

So going into Target to buy whatever this product is to say, hey, forget that they don't honor us, forget that they've disrespected to George Floyd family, forget that they are only allowing black people on entry level positions. Let's do it for lipstick. I think that we're losing the larger conversation. I want to see the sisters win. I want to see them do overwhelmingly well. But I think that we got to get into a room and figure out how do we make it more accessible for those

So will we ever get there past it? Like you know, we want to get there, right? Will we ever own our own Target slash Walmart? Where we ever own our own car manufacturer? Will we ever own our own so we can rely on it? It just seems like we're far stretched from that.

Yeah, So one of the things that we're asking for Target to do, and for all of the demands that we're asking of Target, please go to targetfast dot or they're on twenty seven college campuses, but no HBCUs. I'm asking Target to partner with ten HBCUs to show our businesses how to scale up and to go into the retail space.

REPM Shopton is one of my mentors.

But in the history of black people, we have never marched black people into a white business to say, spend money here. So we got to figure out how it is that we really re route and redirect so that we can create an ecosystem.

For us to be able to do.

I think that is possible, but as a plan that has to be a foot in order to make it done.

I don't have any problem with the boycott but I don't have a problem with the boycott either. I just feel like, you know, people should do something. I agree if they're moved to do something. But I saw you repost the preachers who let it there flocking to the store to buy all the black products. Why why did you feel the need to.

Read the room, read the room. There's there's there's no.

Way room though everybody room different.

No, no, no, no, read the living room. Yeah.

The Japanese proverbs said the best room in the house is the room for improvement. You'll notice that it caurreed on nowhere. Nobody thought that that was a good idea.

Except a lot of people talking about a bide.

Yeah, end target.

Yeah. I heard a lot of people saying't going there and buy all the black products.

Yeah, don't do that, Yeah, don't do that.

I think that there's got to be a different way that we redirect. I think, to my sister's point, how do we support these businesses, to Envy's point that we don't have a major retailer.

We're the most creative people. Y'all brought everybody in there.

Master p got on from selling from the trunk of his car. So I think that we got to be innovative and put a think tank together. Say, Maggie Johnson, you brought all these movie theaters in the concession staying cannot now buy lipstick. I don't know the answer to it, but I think that we've got to figure out a way and figure out a path and figure out a tributary.

I just don't want us to make the same mistakes that our generations before us me meaning like people would knock.

Martin Luther King Jr. For his methods, and.

You know, different organizations would knock each other and say, no, we should be doing it this way, we should be doing it that way. It's like yo, as long as everybody's doing something, I feel like it all can be effective.

In a sense. I'm gonna meet you on a fifty yard line. If you got beef with.

Somebody, Me and you were friends and you find out who you got beef with, I'm at dinner with You're like, oh, man, I thought we was together, don't worry about it was just cheesecake.

We ain't even talk about you. You would look at me with a.

Different kind of eye, like, came, man, if we in it together, how are you carrousing with the person who is against me? And so I think that there's gotta be a line in the sand of how it is that we stand without attacking each other. I think that's where where the rubbers the road. That can be many different paths. I spoke at a college last week in Michigan, and I asked them who is the head of the LGBTQ movement, and all of these college students, nobody can

To that point.

I feel like Malcolm was wrong for that. And the reason I say that is because Martin Luther King Jr. Was doing real work in an area We needed him to do real work, meaning that he was building with john Na Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to get actual legislation passed. But we need somebody like Martin, I mean, Malcolm raising hell in the streets.

So to me, there was no reason for Malcolm to be calling out Martin, yes and vice versa.

Yeah, yeah, I think it was calling out the philosophy.

The students who are part of the civil rights movement before they could protest, before they could demonstrate, they argued on the college campus at the professor, and they had to have practice. So if somebody spits on you, that's what you do. They try to pull you out from the lunch counter, this is what you do. The reality is we are no longer arguing philosophies. We're just arguing about people and personality or who I don't like, who

My issue is with those who don't believe in nothing, who are just internet gangster.

Oh, this ain't gonna work. We ain't never gonna stick together. This ain't gonna have no traction. Okay, then what are you gonna do?

How those people reached out to you, the people that don't agree with what you're doing, like those pastors that took their congregation into buy Have you had those conversations who y'all can get on the same page and see some of the things.

That yes, yes, yes.

So as soon as I saw it, because I know them, three fourths of them, I text them, ay man, y'all on the wrong side of history.

You said amen, He said, nigga.

I said it was a Sunday.

I said.

It was a Sunday.

So I said, hey man, I said, hey man, you're on the wrong side of history. He texted me back and said, hey, this is what I thought process was, This is why it is that we did it. I said, it would have gone a whole lot further and better if you had the conversation before you went in there. So I went on a college campus to go speak in Detroit, Wayne State. I come out of a lecturing and the presses there and says, what do you think about these pastors going to target?

Said? What passed us?

What are you talking about the reporter showed it to me on the phone, and so that's when I got in it. And I think that communication can solve a whole lot of issues on so many different levels, whether you married or whether you go on political agendas. Silence is the worst thing that you can ever do. But when we learn how to talk to each other and discuss it, I understood where it is that they were coming from. Those pastors are now walking alongside us for

Saw you say that Target has been trying to reach out to you. Yes, you, I don't want to talk no diversity.

No, you may not have a job next week. You've reached out during Black History mardw. I don't know if you're gonna make it to same Patrick's. I need somebody who got some job security and got some influence to make a decision. I think this generation doesn't want symbolic wins, they want substantive strides. And if you're just doing that to say we met, we talked all the street, credibility

So the person that reached out to you felt had no influence.

Not enough influence.

Yeah, so you're gonna send the black people out to talk to the black black guy, go talk to the black.

Gun them down. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.

I need to talk to the CEO or I need to talk to somebody who was on that board of Target or who can really help me understand where you are and if you all are being punked by JD. Vance and Trump, tell me that let's figure out how we can walk alongside each other.

That's what it is.

Yeah, that's what it is.

Yeah.

You so I know that talking about meeting Eventually y'all want to have a conversation or there is something schedule right you guys will be meeting June twelfth of Minneapolis.

That's when their stockholders meeting is yeah, so.

We are planning on going now. I'm hoping that we have resolved by.

Them, that's what I was getting. Yes, we can't wait till.

June, but June twelfth and there Now it's an underground murmur that they don't even want to do an in person shareholders me.

They want to do it by zoom.

Want to show yes, yes, but that's why it's important for you to have the data to show how this has been impacted, how much money you've lost in the stock and what is at stake. So we wanted to take take all of that to the shareholders me to June twelfth.

But you know, there was a bunch of Target shareholders who filed a class action lawsuit against Target, and they claim that Target artificially inflated stock prices and failed the one investors about how removing DEI and ESG, which is environmental, social and governance policies, could cause stock prices to plummet. And it also talks about how Target concealed the backlashes suffered from the.

Pride Month campaign.

Yes, after they removed the LGBTQ merchandise, and that's how they've been losing all of that money since November of twenty twenty four.

The America's worst Nightmayre is the marginalized unit. Fine, if all of the different sectors came together, that's when you have real power. Fingers separated don't mean anything. Fingers together become a fists. The Poor People's Campaign is what doctor King was putting together. Just before he was assassinated. He said, the same poverty that's happening in Selma is the same poverty to us in.

The Appalachian Mountains.

What happened that really frightened Jagehoover against the Black Panther Party was they were unifying all marginalized people. So imagine, if we're dealing with immigration, we don't allow the media to just make it a Mexican issue. Let's talk about the five hundred thousand Haitians who are unprotected. Let's talk about the Africans who are being deported. Hear this family

If all of.

These factions come together, A sister out of Harvard University says, you to have a real revolution, you don't need one hundred percent participation, You only need three percent. If three percent of the population organized, you can shut any culture down, any government down, any society down.

And what we're seeing in.

These town hall meetings with these Republican senators and congress people is people are waking up saying, Hey, this and what I signed up for. This can't be the last train to Paris. Let me get out of here and change direction. So I think that you're getting ready to see a percolating in America of those who are marginalized, that it is not just.

A race issue, it is a class issue. My last question for you, where are you at now? Numbers wise?

Because I know you were looking to get one hundred thousand people by when's this Wednesday the fifth? When it starts and you are say.

Yeah, you got one hundred and ten thousand.

People got you have come and we did it before we ever got to the breakfast club.

So now, y'all, we got to get to one fifty. We got to get to one fifty because numbers is power.

It was important for me to have tangible evidence of how many people are standing behind us, that it is not just a post, it's not just lights and shares, but one hundred thousand people. I can press a button'send a email to say hey we outside in Target, Hey we in Cincinnati, so that the people at Target know that we mean business. That is not just symbolism, but there's substance behind you.

How can people get behind you?

Go to targetfast dot org.

It's just one word there, you'll see what is our list of a demand. When it is that you sign up for Target fast, I'm gonna send you a digital directory to those three hundred thousand businesses.

And even for those of you who.

Don't go to church or watch online, I'm gonna send you a daily prayer devotional so that you can stay focused, no pun intended, so you can stay on Target for what it is that we're trying to get done.

All right, Well, we appreciate you for joining us this morning. Targetfast dot org.

Thank you so much, brother man, thank you. And when y'all come to Atlanta, I'm coming through. I ain't even got a ticket. I'm coming.

Yeah, he came.

Patter Jamal's popped up to my Black podcast Festival.

I'm coming.

I want to come to New birth Man, you gotta want to come on Sunday and check it out.

Yeah, you gotta come. Absolutely, this room met to cross. Hey, let me say this to you. I'm from Baltimore.

Do you know the first place I ever had Cray Charston, South Carolina, Monk's Corner, Monks Corner, Okay, Monk's Corner, A and me Church right there. James Blake, James Blake, just back in the eighties. It is the first place I ever had. My famous from Georgetown, South Carolina. So we used to come down there every summer.

But Baltimore you had crabs and you from Baltimore. They better than Baltimore. Never does not go too far.

Trauma, no, no, was trauma that I had to do it in South Carolina before is amazing.

It's amazing. It's great. Just not as good as Baltimore, but it's good. Thank you all.

Passing Jamal Brian is the Breakfast Club. Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning.

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