Selling Harm: Big Tobacco's Playbook in Black America
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For decades, Big Tobacco has deliberately targeted Black communities—profiting from addiction, exploiting culture, and fueling health inequities that persist today. What we are witnessing is not accidental. It is strategic, calculated, and deeply rooted in a history of corporate exploitation.
This Black History Month, we invite you into a powerful and necessary conversation about how these tactics took hold—and how they continue to shape health outcomes in Black America.
Exposing the Playbook: How Big Tobacco Targeted Black America
From aggressive menthol marketing to price promotions designed to undercut public health efforts, the tobacco industry has built a tailored strategy aimed squarely at Black communities. Companies saturated neighborhoods with advertisements, sponsored cultural events, leveraged Black media outlets, and positioned menthol cigarettes as symbols of style, identity, and belonging.
But behind the glossy ads and community sponsorships was a devastating reality: addiction, preventable disease, and lives cut short.
In this webinar, AMPLIFY! works to expose the industry’s playbook in detail—examining how menthol targeting, discount pricing, media influence, and policy manipulation worked together to normalize tobacco use. We’ll explore how these tactics were not just marketing decisions, but part of a broader pattern of exploiting systemic racism, economic disinvestment, and structural inequities.
Beyond History: Connecting Racism, Corporate Power, and Public Health
This conversation goes beyond simply looking back. It challenges us to connect the dots between racism, corporate influence, and today’s public health disparities.
How did structural inequities make Black communities more vulnerable to predatory marketing?
How did policy failures allow these practices to flourish? And most importantly, how can communities, advocates, and leaders disrupt this cycle?
Together, we’ll explore what it takes to push back against corporate exploitation and build healthier, tobacco-free futures rooted in justice and equity.
What You’ll Learn
By the end of the webinar, participants were able to:
Identify key historical and contemporary marketing strategies used by the tobacco industry to target Black/African American communities, including menthol promotion and price discounting.
Understand how systemic racism and structural inequities have been leveraged to normalize tobacco use in Black America.
Recognize the role of policy, media, and community environments in either sustaining or disrupting predatory tobacco marketing practices.
This Black History Month, we are not just remembering the past—we are confronting it. And together, we are shaping a future where Black communities are no longer targeted for profit, but prioritized for health, dignity, and life.
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