Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant is midway through a fervent sermon at his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church outside of Atlanta. Thousands of his flock are on their feet in the stadium-sized chapel as he strides back and forth across the stage in a light blue suit, his voice rising and falling. He alternates between conversation and condemnation, shifting between references to Shakespeare and Alcoholics Anonymous.

“Something’s gotta break!”

He repeats the challenge over and over, admonishing worshipers to break the habits that lead to debt, broken marriages, drugs or drinking. Then he turns to perhaps his biggest battle, an uphill, four-month-old fight to get Black consumers to break their habit of shopping at Target.

Bryant, 54, is demanding Target Corp. recant on its January decision to shift long-standing commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion. He and his supporters have singled out Target because of its historic support of the Black community and Black-owned brands. The outcome is key for both the Black church and the broader civil rights movement, he says.

While he wasn’t the first to call for a Target boycott, the fight has taken on an existential nature for Bryant and others in the Black church who are desperate to force a company to defy US President Donald Trump’s war on what Trump calls “illegal DEI.”