Apple Renamed This Scottish Apple Store in Its Stand for Racial Justice

Last week Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple would be pouring $100 million into a new initiative to help promote racial equality and justice throughout its entire organization and hold itself to a higher standard in stepping up to the plate to address issues of systemic racism within its own organization.

During his announcement, Cook emphasized that Apple would leave no stone unturned in dealing with the problems facing underrepresented and underprivileged communities today, and that it would “touch just about everything” that Apple does.

When Cook said this, it appears that he wasn’t just paying lip service to the problems either, and we’re already seeing subtle but significant changes to reflect Apple’s even more progressive stance with something as seemingly innocuous as changing the name of a local Apple Store in Scotland.

‘Apple Glasgow’

Apple has had a retail location on Buchanan Street in Glasgow, Scotland for a few years now, and as with the naming of most of Apple’s retail stores, the name of the location simply followed the street that it was on.

It turns out, however, that Buchanan Street in Glasgow is actually named after a Scottish plantation owner, Andrew Buchanan, who held considerable land holdings — and slaves — in Virginia. As the BBC reported last week, activists in Scotland have been calling for government officials to rename streets linked to slave owners — of which there are surprisingly more than a few — but of course government can move pretty slowly when it comes to such things. Protesters have added their own signs — Buchanan Street was briefly given the name George Floyd Street — however these have been removed by local authorities since they don’t (yet) reflect the official name.

Apple, however, has no such limitations, and as 9to5Mac reports, the company has taken the proactive step of officially renaming its Apple retail store in Glasgow to simply “Apple Glasgow,” removing the reference to Buchanan Street in the name, although — now at least — it will still have to suffer with a Buchanan Street address.

While Apple does rename stores from time to time, this may be the first instance where this has happened without an accompanying change to the surrounding area. Obviously Apple renames stores when they move to a new location, and of course if the name of a mall where an Apple Store is located changes, the store name will naturally change with it.

Apple’s store on Buchanan Street, however, is a standalone location and it hasn’t moved. Apple has made any official comment on the name change, although the reasons are pretty obvious in light of Tim Cook’s message last week.

Apple may also simply be anticipating that the municipal government will eventually respond to public pressure to change the street name anyway, but by being proactive it also effectively lends its voice to petitions to do so by making it clear that it no longer wants to be associated with the infamous legacy of the street’s namesake. A petition on Change.org to rename the street has already gathered over 27,000 signatures, and there’s no doubt that Apple’s decision will carry a lot of additional weight in support of that.