Celebrities Call For Shopping Boycott Amid Tensions in Ferguson

US celebrities are joining calls on social media for a shopping boycott on Black Friday, one of the busiest consumer-spending days in the United States, over police brutality in riot-struck Ferguson.

FERGUSON, November 27 (Sputnik) — A number of well-known figures, including hip-hop music producer Russell Simmons, have added their names to the online protest #BlackoutBlackFriday, urging consumers to avoid spending money during Friday's sales.

Now is the time for us to stand united & take action #BlackoutBlackFriday: http://t.co/1BAUkcZaEf. RT! pic.twitter.com/nfH25UlRXN

— #BlackoutBlackFriday (@UnitedBlackout) 28 ноября 2014

“The National reaction to Ferguson could be the beginning of more a conscious progressive community which could change American politics,” Simmons said in social media. “We must put people in office who are sensitive to the plight of the black community.”

“We have the power to change our nation,” Kat Graham, star of a popular show called The Vampire Diaries wrote.

On Monday, a grand jury decided not to bring charges against white police officer Darren Wilson for shooting and killing Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American 18-year-old, during an altercation in a leafy backstreet in a Ferguson suburb on August 9.

The controversial decision spawned a fresh round of protests in major cities across the US and in Ferguson, where protesters and rioters clashed with police and a beefed-up deployment of 2,200 members of the National Guard.

The number of protesters dwindled on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, with snowstorms, cold weather and celebrations of the national US Thanksgiving holiday keeping many people off the streets after two nights of often-violent hooliganism.