WASHINGTON — QUESTION:
Viral posts claim that Bank of America, Pepsi, Walmart, Apple and Comcast made large donations to the Black Lives Matter organization. But are they true?
ANSWER:
No. Each of these companies has made monetary pledges to racial justice, but none made a donation to the actual Black Lives Matter foundation.
SOURCE:
Public statements from Walmart, Bank of America, Pepsi, Apple and Comcast.
PROCESS:
A few posts, one on Facebook and one on Twitter, make the claim that these companies donated large sums of money to Black Lives Matter. The posts paint these donations in a negative light, but the Verify team is all about the facts.
So we set out to find whether these companies actually made the donations that these posts claim they did.
While each of the companies in question has pledged that amount of money to work toward racial equity, none have pledged donations to the Black Lives Matter organization itself.
Let's start with Walmart.
On June 5, 2020, the company issued a statement pledging $100 million to create a new racial equity center within the company.
Next is Bank of America. On June 2, 2020, they announced a $1 billion, four-year commitment to start programs that focus on helping communities of color address economic and racial inequality.
As for PepsiCo, they've pledged $400 million to a set of initiatives over five years to "lift up Black communities and increase Black representation at PepsiCo."
Apple's CEO Tim Cook announced on Twitter the company's new Racial Equity and Justice Initiative with a $100 million commitment on June 11, 2020.
Comcast is the only company that plans to donate money directly to racial justice organizations, although none of them are Black Lives Matter. The company announced on June 8, 2020 that they're developing a plan to designate $100 million to fight injustice and inequality against any race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation or ability. Much of their work is internal, excluding some grants for groups like the NAACP and the Equal Justice Initiative.
So we can verify, no, none of these companies pledged to donate millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter. They DID pledge millions of dollars to racial equity initiatives within their own companies.