Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

A Preview Interview with Marcia Chatelain

From civil rights to Ferguson, Franchise reveals the untold history of how fast food became one of the greatest generators of black wealth in America.

Often blamed for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes among black Americans, fast food restaurants like McDonald’s have long symbolized capitalism’s villainous effects on our nation’s most vulnerable communities. But how did fast food restaurants so thoroughly saturate black neighborhoods in the first place? In Franchise, acclaimed historian Marcia Chatelain uncovers a surprising history of cooperation among fast food companies, black capitalists, and civil rights leaders, who―in the troubled years after King’s assassination―believed they found an economic answer to the problem of racial inequality. With the discourse of social welfare all but evaporated, federal programs under presidents Johnson and Nixon promoted a new vision for racial justice: that the franchising of fast food restaurants, by black citizens in their own neighborhoods, could finally improve the quality of black life. Synthesizing years of research, Franchise tells a troubling success story of an industry that blossomed the very moment a freedom movement began to wither.

Marcia Chatelain is a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University.  She is a leading public voice on the history of race, education, and food culture. The author of South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration, Chatelain lives in Washington, DC.

Further Reading

Here, you’ll find more resources to feed your interest in the topics covered at this event.

Other works by Dr. Chatelain

https://www.marciachatelain.com/writing

Resources on Related Topics

Cruz, L. (2015). ‘Dinnertimin’ and ‘No Tipping’: How Advertisers Targeted Black Consumers in the 1970s. The Atlantic. Retrieved March 3, 2021 from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/casual-racism-and-greater-diversity-in-70s-advertising/394958/ 

Gordon, C. (2019). Citizen Brown: Race, Democracy, and Inequality in the St. Louis Suburbs. University of Chicago Press.  

Rabig, J. (2012). The Business of Black Power: Community Development, Capitalism, and Corporate Responsibility in Postwar America. University of Rochester Press.