Marcia Chatelain is a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University, and is a leading public voice on the history of race, education, and food culture. Synthesizing years of research, Franchise tells a troubling success story of an industry that blossomed the very moment a freedom movement began to wither. 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.
By using other well-known franchises as an example, she shows the rapid development of retail chains and a changing political course associated with racial-ethnic issues.In Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Marcia Chatelain explores how fast food restaurants saturated black neighborhoods and became, as well, a focal point in the development of “black capitalism.” To tell this story, she charts 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. Chatelain notes that the chain’s controversial policy stance that was associated with an open bias towards the African American populations at certain times suggests a strong relationship between social and business dimensions. The author pays particular attention to McDonald’s, a fast-food restaurant chain, and discusses how the globalization agenda in business was associated with moods in society. Her book explores the complexities reflecting African Americans’ self-identity and the controversial nuances of social relationships through the prism of the franchise as a phenomenon that emerged in the second half of the 20th century. Chatelain introduces the key messages of her research.
The lecture delivered by Marcia Chatelain, a respected scholar specializing in history and, in particular, studies of racial ethnicity, is based on the analysis of her book called “Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America.” After she is introduced to the audience, Ms.
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