Shaun King, a Black Lives Matter activist and columnist for The New York Daily News, announced on Monday his plans to organize a boycott of New York City, San Francisco and Standing Rock.
In an official announcement on The Tom Joyner Morning Show, King said that the project, which he has dubbed Injustice Boycott, will aim to force the progressive cities to meet local activists’ demands regarding police brutality.
And if those demands are not met within 43 days — by Martin Luther King Jr. Day — King says that he will activate Injustice Boycott supporters — more than 200,000 people, according to his estimate — to level a four-prong attack on commerce and government.
As King told Joyner, the proposed strategy includes:
- “A full tourism boycott”
- “A comprehensive divestment plan where we ask people to pull their money out of banks, financial institutions, and investment plans in which we have determined that those institutions either directly support racial injustice or police brutality in those cities or have chosen to remain completely silent in the midst of this national crisis.”
- “A targeted national boycott of businesses in those cities that have either directly supported injustice or have remained painfully silent in the face of it.”
- “[Disruption of] cities by protest designed to inconvenience and shut down both commerce and government.”
King, who took a job as a justice columnist at The Daily News last year, said that the boycott phase of the project will begin after the 43 day window has expired.
“In essence right now what we’re making is a threat,” he acknowledged on Monday. “If you don’t make them, on January 17, we will have a four-prong boycott on your city.”
King said that he hopes the boycott will expand to other progressive cities in 2017. But he wants to avoid rolling out too much too quickly for fear that “it will be poorly managed.”
King has legitimate cause for caution on that front. Several activist projects he has started over the years went belly up due to his mismanagement.
As The Daily Caller has reported, King started two separate projects — Justice for All and Justice Together — in which he used volunteers’ time and donations to help further the fight against police brutality. But mismanagement of Justice Together sparked a civil war of sorts between King and other Black Lives Matter leaders. DeRay Mckesson, a prominent activist, criticized King on social media for refusing to address his handling of Justice Together. King returned more than $10,000 in donations he raised for Justice Together after TheDC’s report. (RELATED: Charities Touted By Shaun King Appear To Have Never Existed)
TheDC has also reported that stories that King has told about racial struggles he has faced in the past are inconsistent with reality. For example, King claimed that he was the target of a racial hate crime when he was a high school student in Kentucky after he was attacked by a group of white classmates. TheDC reported that the detective who worked that case found no evidence that the incident was racially motivated. (RELATED: Leading Ferguson Activist’s Claims Of High School Hate Crime Not Backed Up By Police Report, Detective)