A month after Starbucks unveiled its”Race Together” social media campaign to talk about race (which resulted in widespread mockery), the coffee chain is opening a location in Ferguson, Missouri, the small town that caught national attention for racial tensions sparked by the death of teenager Michael Brown.
CEO Howard Schultz discussed Starbucks’ moves to address racial tension on Tuesday. In those remarks, at a NationSwell event on U.S. innovation, Schultz briefly mentioned that Starbucks had plans to open a location in Ferguson, according to Fortune magazine.
Although Schultz’s remarks at the NationSwell event centered on fighting racism and inequality, he only briefly mentioned the future Ferguson Starbucks. Fortune followed up with Schultz after his remarks but the Starbucks CEO said there was no timeline for when the Ferguson Starbucks would open. A spokesperson for Starbucks told Fortune that the Ferguson location is part of the company’s plan to “build more stores in urban neighborhoods.”
Ferguson is 70 percent black. Starbucks, Fortune noted, tends to have locations in majority white neighborhoods.
In 2014, Ferguson was the small city of Missouri just outside of St. Louis that saw massive protests over the shooting of Brown, who was black, by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who is white. A St. Louis grand jury decided not to indict Wilson in the shooting.
The shooting and following crackdown by police resulted on mass protests put Ferguson in the national spotlight.
(H/t: TPM alum Ryan Reilly)
