Rev. Al Sharpton put his money where his mouth is and led a “buy in” at the Harlem Costco in support of the company rejecting a bid that challenged their corporate DEI policies. The MSNBC host said that he and 100 members of his National Action Network shopped at the store Sunday.
Costco shareholders voted Friday to reject an anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) proposal brought by activist shareholder group National Center for Public Policy Research. The measure would have required the wholesale grocery chain to issue a report on the risks associated with their DEI policies.
“Leading a buy-in with 100+ @NationalAction members at the @Costco location in Harlem, NYC to show support for the company’s strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),” Rev. Sharpton said in a post on X.
In a speech outside the grocery club, Sharpton said that he bought $25 gift certificates for the 100 “buy in” participants that they would use at Costco to reward the wholesaler giant for not backing down from its DEI commitments.
“We’re going shopping at Costco because they’ve stood with us. People that stand with us, we will stand with them,” Sharpton said.
Sharpton called for a boycott on companies dropping their DEI policies in a Martin Luther King Day speech at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C.
“Why do we have DEI? We have DEI because you denied us diversity, you denied us equity, you denied us inclusion. DEI was a remedy to the racial institutionalized bigotry practice in academia and in these corporations. Now, if you want to put us back in the back of the bus, we going to do the Dr. King-Rosa Parks on you,” Sharpton said.
Sharpton’s move comes in the wake of President Trump’s executive orders terminating DEI initiatives from the federal government. The order has already resulted in nearly 400 federal bureaucrats being put on leave and the cancelation of over $400 million in federal spending on DEI initiatives, according to DOGE.
The National Action Network head slammed Trump’s actions as an “outright affront” to the Black community and other minority groups outside Costco on Sunday.
While Costco is standing firm behind its DEI policies, many other corporations are choosing to ditch the controversial programs following a nationwide backlash. Facebook, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Harley-Davidson and many other companies have all rolled back their DEI programs in recent months. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon doubled down on his bank’s DEI policies during an interview at Davos World Economic Forum.
Ethan Peck, from the National Center for Public Policy Research told Fox News Digital that he believes the battle with Costco isn’t over yet, and that there’s still a “decent chance” the wholesaler will drop its DEI policies by the end of the year.
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