Starbucks is to close more than eight-thousand stores across the United States for one afternoon next month to educate workers on what it called racial bias.
The training session will be provided on May 29th to about 175-thousand employees.
It comes as the coffee shop giant tries to cool tensions after the arrests of two black men at one of its stores in Philadelphia last week, which sparked accusations of racial profiling.
In a statement Tuesday, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said he and his leadership team spent the past few days in Philadelphia to get feedback from the community and work out a solution.
Protesters have called for a boycott of the company, in what has become the biggest PR test yet for the CEO who took the helm about a year ago.