Black Lives Matter protest targets Black Friday in Seattle
Nov 23, 2018, 10:38 AM | Updated: 5:23 pm
A Black Lives Matter group protests near the giant Christmas tree at Seattle's Westlake Center in 2015. (Sara Lerner/KIRO Radio)
(Sara Lerner/KIRO Radio)
Black Lives Matter Seattle held its annual protest in Seattle on Friday, running until 9 p.m.
RELATED: Black Lives Matter Seattle to boycott ‘white businesses’
Black Lives Matter Seattle held its annual Black Friday protest in the city Friday afternoon and into the evening, encouraging its members to “shop black only” and “boycott white businesses” they say hurt the black community.
According to the official event page, the protest started at 1 p.m. in Seattle’s Central District, and running until 9 p.m. In past year’s it’s run into the annual holiday tree lighting ceremony, but for this edition the tree lighting went off without a hitch. One Tweet — that has since been deleted — from BLM-Seattle did state, “no tree lighting no work no school Just #ShopBlack.”
Friday’s Black Friday protest comes at a contentious time for the movement, with another local Black Lives Matter organization doing what it can to distance itself from BLM-Seattle, reportedly run by Miles Partman.
“Miles Partman and his chapter are not (and have never been) affiliated with the national organization,” Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County clarified in a recent news release.
Roughly 100 people on Facebook indicate they are attending the Seattle protest on Friday, with almost 700 responding as “interested.”
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