The days of Starbucks marking up your coffee with a slogan of racial harmony are over.

Starting Sunday, baristas working for the Seattle-based coffee chain will no longer write "Race Together" on customers' cups.

The pro-unity words were part of a campaign, which ended up garnering some genuine backlash, to promote diversity and spotlight racial inequality.

Jim Olson, a spokesman for Starbucks, said that the "Race Together" initiative will continue more broadly without the handwritten messages.

As reported in an Associated Press article, a company memo written by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said that the cups were intended as "just the catalyst" for a larger conversation.

Starbucks still intends to hold forum discussions as well as co-produce special sections in USA TODAY that will deal with the issue of diversity. The company also plans to put more stores in minority communities as part of the Race Together initiative.

Coming on the heels a series of racially charged events such as national protests over recent police killings of black males, the campaign has been criticized as inappropriate and even opportunistic.

Starbucks maintains that putting an end to the marked-up cups has nothing to do with any criticism the company has received.

Regarding the phase out of the phrase, Olson has stated. "Nothing is changing. It's all part of the cadence of the timeline we originally planned."

Apparently Starbucks was prepared for the backlash, as they acknowledged to their employees via Schultz's note that: "While there has been criticism of the initiative — and I know this hasn't been easy for any of you — let me assure you that we didn't expect universal praise."

At the core, Schultz proclaimed that the point of the campaign was to make sure that "the promise of the American Dream should be available to every person in this country, not just a select few."