boycotting has been a big advancement in ethical consumerism and has inspired others to help the people in need, the people that are still not “free” and are forced to create products that is transported to different countries for a certain price while the people making it are just slaves and are getting nothing for the work they are producing for the world.
One of the earliest examples was the boycott in England of sugar produced by slaves. In 1791, after Parliament refused to abolish slavery, thousands of pamphlets were printed encouraging the boycott. Sales of sugar dropped by between a third and a half. By contrast sales of Indian sugar, untainted by slavery, rose tenfold in two years. In an early example of fair trade, shops began selling sugar guaranteed to be have been produced by ‘free men’.
A more famous boycott that happened was of course the Montgomery Bus boycott and this is when in 1955, Rosa Parks was riding a bus home from work and was ordered to yield her seat to a white passenger. This was Alabama law at the time, and some black men had already started toward the back to make room for her in the ‘Colored’ section. But Ms. Parks refused out of principle, and authorities arrested her.
The news of this spread fast and once the law was changed so that different coloured people can sit on a public transport freely and is not criticised because of their skin colour, everyone was happier and everyone had equal rights, well when they are on public transport. But before this happened, dark toned people were 3 quarters of the Montgomery bus clientele so for the economical side of the story, people had to do something as the blacks were boycotting of not taking the bus at all and taking taxis where the same skin coloured people were driving. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted until December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling (Browder v. Gayle) led the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that the Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses were unconstitutional.