'Black Lives Matter Not Black Friday': Protesters

By Brie Stimson
NBC7

As part of the nationwide movement, protesters gathered in downtown San Diego Friday because ‘Black Lives Matter not Black Friday.'

“I felt it was important to support the movement because just so many black lives are being wasted – not only black lives – but all lives. All lives matter. I felt it was important for my children to be a part of it,” mother Sindhu Sadhaka told NBC7.

During the press conference at the Hall of Justice, the group called for Black Friday to be permanently renamed 'Black Lives Matter' Friday.

“We are asking that our people hold back their money on Black Friday, which is today up until after January 1,” David Muhammad of Justice or Else said at the press conference. “Once we pull back economically from the corporations – corporations dictate to politicians what must be done. So the corporations will feel it and they in turn will tell the politicians to give the people justice.”

After the press conference protesters marched through the streets of downtown amid the Black Friday shoppers.

“These are my sons and they’re twelve and statistically they could be like right there in the mix,” Sadhaka said. “I don’t want them to become another statistic. I want somebody to care about their lives as much as I do.”

The group was created in 2012 after the controversial death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.