page_title: Boycott
section_title: Notable boycotts
hierarchical_section_title: Boycott / Notable boycotts
context_page_description: A boycott is an act of voluntary and intentional abstention from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict some economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral outrage, to try to compel the target to alter an objectionable behavior.
  Sometimes, a boycott can be a form of consumer activism, sometimes called moral purchasing. When a similar practice is legislated by a national government, it is known as a sanction.
context_section_description: Although the term itself was not coined until 1880, the practice dates back to at least the 1790s, when supporters of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain advocated boycotting slave-produced sugar.  Other instances include:
  the Iranian Tobacco Boycott, 1891
  Civil Rights Movement boycotts (e.g., Montgomery & Tallahassee Bus Boycotts)
  the United Farm Workers union grape and lettuce boycotts
  the American boycott of British goods at the time of the American Revolution
  the 1905 Chinese boycott of American products to protest the extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1902.
  the Indian boycott of British goods organized by Mohandas Gandhi
  the successful Jewish boycott organised against Henry Ford in the US, in the 1920s
  the boycott of Japanese products in China after the May Fourth Movement
  the antisemitic boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in Nazi Germany during the 1930s
  the Jewish anti-Nazi boycott of German goods in Lithuania, the US, Britain, Poland and Mandatory Palestine during 1933
  the Arab League boycott of Israel and companies trading with Israel.
  the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign led by Palestinian civil society against the State of Israel.
  The global fossil fuel divestment movement, described by Desmond Tutu as an 'apartheid-style boycott to save the planet,' and considered to be the biggest boycott-style campaign in history.
  During the 1973 oil crisis, the Arab countries enacted a crude oil embargo against the West. Other examples include the US-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, the Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and the movement that advocated "disinvestment" in South Africa during the 1980s in opposition to that country's apartheid regime. The first Olympic boycott was in the 1956 Summer Olympics with several countries boycotting the games for different reasons. Iran also has an informal Olympic boycott against participating against Israel, and Iranian athletes typically bow out or claim injuries when pitted against Israelis (see Arash Miresmaeili).
caption: The 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympic boycotts
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