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Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America
An estimated one-third of all American adults eats something from at a fast-food restaurant every day. Millions start their mornings with paper-wrapped English muffin breakfast sandwiches, order burritos hastily secured in foil for lunch, and end their evenings with extravalue dinners consumed in cars. But while people of all ages and backgrounds enjoy and depend on fast food, it does not mean the same thing to each of us. For African Americans, as acclaimed historian Marcia Chatelain reveals in Franchise, fast food is a source of both despair and power—and a battlefield on which the fight for racial justice has been waged since the 1960s.
On the one hand, we rightly blame fast food for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes among black Americans, and fast food restaurants are viewed as symbols of capitalism’s disastrous effects on our nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Yet at the same time, Chatelain shows, fast food companies, and McDonald’s in particular, have represented a source of economic opportunity and political power. After Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in 1968, many activists turned to entrepreneurship as the means to achieving equality. Civil rights leaders, fast food companies, black capitalists, celebrities, and federal bureaucrats began an unlikely collaboration, in the belief that the franchising of fast food restaurants, by black citizens in their own neighborhoods, could improve the quality of black life.
Equipped with federal loans and utterly committed to the urban centers in which they would open their little sites of hope, black franchise pioneers achieved remarkable success, and by the late 2000s, black-franchised McDonald’s restaurants reported total sales exceeding $2 billion. Fast food represented an opportunity for strivers who had been shut out of many industries, denied promotions in those that would tolerate them, and discouraged, in numerous ways, from starting their own businesses, all because of the color of their skin. But a parallel story emerged, too—of wealth being extracted from black communities, of the ravages of fast food diets, of minumum wage jobs with little prospect for advancement.
Taking us from the first McDonald’s drive-in in San Bernardino in the 1940s to civil rights protests at franchises in the American South in the 1960s and the McDonald’s on Florissant Avenue in Ferguson in the summer 2014, Chatelain charts how the fight for racial justice is intertwined with the fate of black businesses. Deeply researched and brilliantly told, Franchise is an essential story of race and capitalism in America.
On the one hand, we rightly blame fast food for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes among black Americans, and fast food restaurants are viewed as symbols of capitalism’s disastrous effects on our nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Yet at the same time, Chatelain shows, fast food companies, and McDonald’s in particular, have represented a source of economic opportunity and political power. After Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in 1968, many activists turned to entrepreneurship as the means to achieving equality. Civil rights leaders, fast food companies, black capitalists, celebrities, and federal bureaucrats began an unlikely collaboration, in the belief that the franchising of fast food restaurants, by black citizens in their own neighborhoods, could improve the quality of black life.
Equipped with federal loans and utterly committed to the urban centers in which they would open their little sites of hope, black franchise pioneers achieved remarkable success, and by the late 2000s, black-franchised McDonald’s restaurants reported total sales exceeding $2 billion. Fast food represented an opportunity for strivers who had been shut out of many industries, denied promotions in those that would tolerate them, and discouraged, in numerous ways, from starting their own businesses, all because of the color of their skin. But a parallel story emerged, too—of wealth being extracted from black communities, of the ravages of fast food diets, of minumum wage jobs with little prospect for advancement.
Taking us from the first McDonald’s drive-in in San Bernardino in the 1940s to civil rights protests at franchises in the American South in the 1960s and the McDonald’s on Florissant Avenue in Ferguson in the summer 2014, Chatelain charts how the fight for racial justice is intertwined with the fate of black businesses. Deeply researched and brilliantly told, Franchise is an essential story of race and capitalism in America.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 7, 2020
306 people are currently reading
8093 people want to read
About the author
Marcia Chatelain
8 books126 followersMarcia Chatelain is the Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America (Liveright Publishing Co./W.W. Norton, 2020) examined the intricate relationship among African American politicians, civil rights organizations, communities, and the fast-food industry. Franchise won several awards, including the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History, a James Beard Award for Writing, and the Lawrence Levine Award from the Organization of American Historians. Her first book was South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration (Duke University Press, 2015). Chatelain has secured grants and fellowships from the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, New America, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Prior to teaching at Penn, Chatelain was on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma Honors College and Georgetown University’s History Department. Chatelain holds undergraduate degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism and advanced degrees from Brown University’s Department of American Studies. Her latest book How Bright the Path Grows: The Women who Made the March on Washington will be published by Pantheon in the fall of 2026. Chatelain makes her home in Washington, D.C. with her spouse and son.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 283 reviews
January 12, 2020
Essential and necessary book in finally telling the history of black capitalism. Using The Macdonald’s franchise as a point of tension between capitalism, community spaces, and civil rights. There are so many things to think about in here and chatelain never leaves her grip on the helm as a careful and thoughtful historian. I learned a lot and I appreciate this great book!
January 5, 2020
This is a must read for anyone thinking about becoming a franchisee for any fast food company in a black or brown neighborhood. Many times, black capitalism is preached and pushed onto African Americans as a way to set us free. This book confirms that this will not solve anything because the systematic structures full of racism will still hurt us. The author also gives us a history lesson on McDonald's and the black community. How some of our great leaders and organizations made deals with franchises that were not for the greater good over time. Read this book if you want to understand why there is a fast food dominance in some of the "worst" neighborhoods.
January 25, 2020
Franchise is a searing and incisive look at the consequences of a successful pairing of black capitalism with the rise of fast food franchising. It is a sweeping history of the fight for black franchisees of McDonald's, the largest fast food chain in the world, to be heard by the corporation, but Franchise also looks at how government funding for Empowerment Zones and other tax-free activity for businesses have enabled the spread of fast food joints in low income neighborhoods; how the spread of this activity and aggressive targeting of and marketing to Black people has stamped Black people and the poor as some how synonymous with fast food, and how companies, particularly McDonald's has exploited this relationship to the detriment of the health of Black people. There are a lot of really great aspects to this history, but perhaps my favorite is the reminder that the structural realities of racism and capitalism are the hidden backdrop to the ongoing and pervasive health disparities in the Black community -- diabetes, obesity, chronic diseases of all kinds including heart disease and more -- not poor food choices. Like so many other aspects of cultural and social life, the ails of Black people, particularly if they are poor, are blamed on them; Chatelain reminds us, wisely, to remember that, as James Baldwin said, it is expensive to be poor. The poor are not to blame for food deserts and the companies that profit off of uprisings, the destitution that follows and the lack of jobs, affordable, healthy grocery stores or dining options and more. It may be easier for us to believe that and to say that, but history tells another story. An excellent, fascinating read.
April 9, 2021
This one took me a while to finish. The introduction and conclusion are strong, but I'm not sure the evidence in the chapters clearly leads to the conclusions presented in the final chapters. The connections between fast food in general, McDonald's in particular, franchising, Black capitalism, and urban development are interesting. I like how Chatelain brought these together in ways I hadn't considered previously. There are examples drawn from multiple cities, including Cleveland, Atlanta, Portland, and Philadelphia, to demonstrate how the McDonald's franchising played out. These chapters get long at times, in part because the paragraphs within them are long, which might be why it took longer than expected to finish this.
Full disclosure: I have insider knowledge about some of what's in the book. Though Chatelain says she interviewed NBMOA members, the NBMOA and its efforts were surprising absent from this book. The same is true of WON (Women's Operators Network) which basically goes unmentioned despite having multiple Black women as regional and/or national leaders. Which brings me to my larger point.
Chatelain focuses almost entirely on Black men who franchise McDonald's locations and their stories as owner/operators. Black women, including those who co-owed and co-operated those locations, are erased from the narrative. That disappointed me greatly since I know enough to know that Black women have been important in the relationship between McDonald's and Black America.
This isn't a bad book. But, most people could read the first and last chapters to get the main arguments and skip the rest.
Full disclosure: I have insider knowledge about some of what's in the book. Though Chatelain says she interviewed NBMOA members, the NBMOA and its efforts were surprising absent from this book. The same is true of WON (Women's Operators Network) which basically goes unmentioned despite having multiple Black women as regional and/or national leaders. Which brings me to my larger point.
Chatelain focuses almost entirely on Black men who franchise McDonald's locations and their stories as owner/operators. Black women, including those who co-owed and co-operated those locations, are erased from the narrative. That disappointed me greatly since I know enough to know that Black women have been important in the relationship between McDonald's and Black America.
This isn't a bad book. But, most people could read the first and last chapters to get the main arguments and skip the rest.
September 2, 2021
This is a fascinating book but I couldn't give it more than three stars because the author never makes up her mind what she's writing about. It could have been a great book if she just focused on the first ten or twelve black businessmen who won a McDonald's franchise and what that was like. Or if she just focused on nutritional facts about why McDonald's food is not healthy and how people can find alternative ways of eating healthy on a limited budget. Or if she just focused on the ways McDonald's has helped out the black community, or on ways they could do more.
Instead of choosing one topic Marcia Chastain gives you a page or two on one hundred different topics without really fully exploring any of them. The book does have a major argument that she wants to make, i.e. McDonald's can do a lot in the black community but the government can (and should) do more. That's a valid point, but at times the writing is so strident that it almost lends itself to self-parody. "We don't just want free hamburgers -- we want free housing, medical care, and education too! Black capitalism only empowers the talented tenth. Our problems can't be solved by handouts from corporate America -- only by handouts from the United States Government!"
Instead of choosing one topic Marcia Chastain gives you a page or two on one hundred different topics without really fully exploring any of them. The book does have a major argument that she wants to make, i.e. McDonald's can do a lot in the black community but the government can (and should) do more. That's a valid point, but at times the writing is so strident that it almost lends itself to self-parody. "We don't just want free hamburgers -- we want free housing, medical care, and education too! Black capitalism only empowers the talented tenth. Our problems can't be solved by handouts from corporate America -- only by handouts from the United States Government!"
March 30, 2021
A fascinating examination of the relationship of McDonald's and black America.
Do franchises owned by black people significantly improve the lives of people in predominantly black communities? Is that black capitalism an answer to poverty or is capitalism the problem and black ownership of businesses only a bandaid on a problem that has systemic and structural roots and require those kinds of solutions?
Chatelain describes in detail the beginnings of black franchises--the benefits and the (considerable) challenges in buying and running one. The constant presence and power of racism every step of the way.
I had difficulty following the details of the business set-ups, law suits, and maneuverings but whatI got pointed to ways in which McDonald's ingratiated itself into communities, providing benefits but not as substantial as they convinced the public they were. However, in a society that offered little support to predominantly black and impoverished communities, a restaurant that gave out scholarships and offered space for community events stood out.
A definitely worthwhile read.
Do franchises owned by black people significantly improve the lives of people in predominantly black communities? Is that black capitalism an answer to poverty or is capitalism the problem and black ownership of businesses only a bandaid on a problem that has systemic and structural roots and require those kinds of solutions?
Chatelain describes in detail the beginnings of black franchises--the benefits and the (considerable) challenges in buying and running one. The constant presence and power of racism every step of the way.
I had difficulty following the details of the business set-ups, law suits, and maneuverings but whatI got pointed to ways in which McDonald's ingratiated itself into communities, providing benefits but not as substantial as they convinced the public they were. However, in a society that offered little support to predominantly black and impoverished communities, a restaurant that gave out scholarships and offered space for community events stood out.
A definitely worthwhile read.
December 19, 2020
4.5 ⭐️s
I rounded up bc I learned a lot reading this book.
Chatelain delves deep into the relationship between McDonald’s Franchise system & Black America. The book focuses less on health disparities (as in 0) and more on black capitalism, strategic advertising, and the McDonald’s used its Black Franchisees as a means to falsely promote and uplift Black capitalism + culture.
I feel like this is a great starting point to the subject in general. Written very clearly. Sometimes I felt like Chatelain dug into such minute details & listed every example possible, but I’m probably just a lazy reader and she’s a great academic!
I rounded up bc I learned a lot reading this book.
Chatelain delves deep into the relationship between McDonald’s Franchise system & Black America. The book focuses less on health disparities (as in 0) and more on black capitalism, strategic advertising, and the McDonald’s used its Black Franchisees as a means to falsely promote and uplift Black capitalism + culture.
I feel like this is a great starting point to the subject in general. Written very clearly. Sometimes I felt like Chatelain dug into such minute details & listed every example possible, but I’m probably just a lazy reader and she’s a great academic!
February 4, 2025
I really love Marcia Chatelain’s book concepts, and Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America is no exception! This was a really helpful study of how government, corporate, and civic leaders positioned Black fast-food franchising as a substitute for racial and economic justice. Prior to this book, I’d never thought much about fast food restaurants coming to be—they’d just always been around. In Franchise, Chatelain lays out how the growth of this industry was almost immediately woven into the late-twentieth century’s experiments in Black capitalism.
At last, an author who shares my obsession with Black Gen X’s coming of age!
As I noted in my review of When Crack Was King by Donovan X. Ramsey, I am always looking for historical work set in this time period. The 1970s-1990s are central to the political formations of Black Gen X, a subgroup that is remarkably understudied. I’m admittedly interested in studying this subgroup because it includes my parents, aunts, and uncles; people whose actions and opinions have set the course for my life. However, as time goes on, it’s clear that Black Gen X also has a large influence on our society—and not always for the better. For instance, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Black Gen X could soon be responsible for 2/5 of this century’s U.S. presidents. After all, this subgroup has internalized the danger of Black collective action and the opportunity of Black assimilation more than any other generation (more thoughts on that in this review.)
Reading histories about this time period can help us understand “why” and “how” this subgroup has become so intertwined with the maintenance of American empire. I often think about this how/why as follows: these people were Cold War babies, witnesses to the state-sponsored execution of Black radical groups, and early beneficiaries of the growing “diversity” in PWIs and corporate America. Franchise helped me connect the dots about Gen X also being the first true “microwave generation.” As she explains in Franchise, Black Gen Xers would have been the first in their families to grow up in a world with fast food, and would have seen how their communities used these restaurants as sites of civic bargaining and Black entrepreneurial promise. It is perhaps understandable that from this starting point, many of them genuinely believe that “Black capitalism” could be a solution for issues that are in fact caused by capitalism.
Black franchising as an incorrect and incomplete solution
I think Chatelain’s greatest achievement in Franchise is in exploring this very irony. She shows after the 1960s uprisings’ impacts on the business sector, many politicians and corporate leaders were desperate to find a “solution” to Black unrest that did not alter the economic order. Fairly quickly, Black franchising became a bipartisan “solution” that could be promoted by everyone from Richard Nixon to the NAACP.
Chatelain shows how despite the claims of Black fast-food franchising being an economic opportunity for Black owners and workers, wealth creation from these endeavors was restricted to the typical parties. Fast food corporations harvested the profits of their Black franchises, while being protected from operating risks due to the franchise model. White-owned “middleman” businesses were intimately involved in launching these “Black-owned” franchises, and enriched themselves as well. Chatelain also shows that while well-to-do Blacks were the best-positioned to capitalize on Black franchise opportunities, their paths to wealth in the industry were anything but certain. Her summaries of numerous legal battles and expansion conflicts shows how the power of these alleged Black capitalists was often quite conditional.
As Chatelain notes, we see the afterlives of this incomplete solution even today. As many people have noted, some of the main “corporate solutions” to the 2020 uprisings were an onslaught of positions and programs aiming to “diversify” various industries. This is certainly true in the planning world, where nearly every affordable housing organization now has a designated program for Black developers, but very few organizations are equally supporting ownership opportunities for Black tenants living in these “Black-developed” affordable housing units. Franchise shows how our current model was perfected in the franchising era: mass protests led by Black people directly impacted by police violence result in a few “good jobs” or favorable lines of credit for Black people in the professional-managerial class—be they franchisers or DEI consultants.
The shrinking articulations of community benefit
As a trained city/regional planner, I also really enjoyed the broader story Chatelain was painting about what franchise locations came to mean to Black communities. In many “post-riot” Black neighborhoods impacted by deindustrialization and suburbanization, fast-food locations were some of the only new storefronts to be found. Chatelain argues that because of this disparity, fast food franchises had an outsized role in protests about Black community development. To me, it was particularly clear that the “fast food resistance movement” is a precursor to the community benefits agreements (CBAs) that we see today.
Now that capital has “returned” to urban core neighborhoods, Black communities are often working to carve out a piece of the pie in major development projects that will impact their neighborhoods. While reading Franchise, I realized how so many of the tactics for these modern CBA fights (from boycotts to job promises) are directly inherited from the fast-food model. This moment set serious limits around what types of corporate benevolence communities could and couldn’t expect in expect in return for their patronage, and also on the types of commercial development that lenders would support.
Case in point: I am on the board of a Black food cooperative in Raleigh, and our challenges to open a community-owned grocery store in 2024 are still being influenced by the patterns of fast-food expansion and promotion that Chatelain describes. To this day, it is easier to get favorable financing to open a franchise location in a Black neighborhood than it is to open a grocery store. While this is partially due to the inherent racism of market studies (again, planning is the problem in everything), it’s also because of the long-established standard that simply opening a “Black-owned” store that employs Black workers (even at poverty wages) should be construed as community benefit. This, Chatelain argues, is something we can thank McDonald’s and Nixon for!!
Closing Thoughts + Slight Criticisms
As you can see, there is lots in this book to keep you thinking for weeks!!! Chatelain’s second book is certainly impressive, and often interesting. Unfortunately, there was just something in the execution that kept Franchise from feeling like a true 5-star read for me.
I think it has to do with the scope of this story. For instance, I had a better experience with Chatelain’s first book, South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration. By focusing more concretely on Chicago, it felt like she was able to keep the narrative a bit tighter, even while moving around to discuss different elements of migration realities (e.g. religion, reform, education, etc.) In Franchise, we are both jumping cities and jumping topics and I felt like everything wasn’t being tied together as skillfully as I would like. At the end of the book, Chatelain starts ramping up her discussion of fast food and health inequities, something that certainly makes sense as part of her research. Unfortunately, because of the hasty way it was introduced, and the lack of organization I already felt as a reader, I just felt like it was “too little, too late” for this topic. So, while I would recommend this book, I really wish it had a different editor.
To close, I will say that if anyone has any other recommendations about 1970s-1980s Black political histories, I am all open. The next book in my “Black Gen X” reading era will probably be Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia by Thomas Healy. Many of the books I find on this topic are decidedly focused on cities, but in my experience, a lot of the experiments in Black capitalism and political development also took place in the country! One example is Soul City, Floyd McKissick’s project in Warren County, NC. Soul City is of special interest to me, because it is 20 minutes from my where my family is from, and my cousin actually works at the Soul City Pool each summer! So, more thoughts on this theme then! 😊
Application Corner
In 2024, I am trying to discuss more IRL actions I can take in relation to the issues described in my nonfiction reads. As discussed in this review, I think the most notable takeaway from Franchise relates to the broader topic of equitable development in Black neighborhoods.
In my volunteer and work life, I am constantly inspired by the people and organizations that are counteracting the impossibly low standards for Black community development that were reinforced by the franchising movement. Many of these organizations are actively building the solidarity economy by forming alternative real estate models for everything from housing to retail. As any obnoxious bro-planner will tell you, this work is not yet scalable, but I don’t think that makes it any less valuable. As one of my favorite planning books (Sam Stein’s Capital City) notes, these “demonstration projects” help make the case for how much better it would be if we decommodified the places where we live and feed ourselves.
If you’re interested in supporting this work, a few of my favorite orgs are Fertile Ground Food Cooperative in Raleigh (the home team!), The Guild in Atlanta, and Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi. If you’re looking for a much larger list of solidarity economy organizations near you, definitely check out the directory and other resources from the New Economy Coalition. Finally, if you’re a planner trying to keep track of community ownership work in the affordable housing world, Shelterforce can often point you in the right (left?) direction.
At last, an author who shares my obsession with Black Gen X’s coming of age!
As I noted in my review of When Crack Was King by Donovan X. Ramsey, I am always looking for historical work set in this time period. The 1970s-1990s are central to the political formations of Black Gen X, a subgroup that is remarkably understudied. I’m admittedly interested in studying this subgroup because it includes my parents, aunts, and uncles; people whose actions and opinions have set the course for my life. However, as time goes on, it’s clear that Black Gen X also has a large influence on our society—and not always for the better. For instance, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Black Gen X could soon be responsible for 2/5 of this century’s U.S. presidents. After all, this subgroup has internalized the danger of Black collective action and the opportunity of Black assimilation more than any other generation (more thoughts on that in this review.)
Reading histories about this time period can help us understand “why” and “how” this subgroup has become so intertwined with the maintenance of American empire. I often think about this how/why as follows: these people were Cold War babies, witnesses to the state-sponsored execution of Black radical groups, and early beneficiaries of the growing “diversity” in PWIs and corporate America. Franchise helped me connect the dots about Gen X also being the first true “microwave generation.” As she explains in Franchise, Black Gen Xers would have been the first in their families to grow up in a world with fast food, and would have seen how their communities used these restaurants as sites of civic bargaining and Black entrepreneurial promise. It is perhaps understandable that from this starting point, many of them genuinely believe that “Black capitalism” could be a solution for issues that are in fact caused by capitalism.
Black franchising as an incorrect and incomplete solution
I think Chatelain’s greatest achievement in Franchise is in exploring this very irony. She shows after the 1960s uprisings’ impacts on the business sector, many politicians and corporate leaders were desperate to find a “solution” to Black unrest that did not alter the economic order. Fairly quickly, Black franchising became a bipartisan “solution” that could be promoted by everyone from Richard Nixon to the NAACP.
Chatelain shows how despite the claims of Black fast-food franchising being an economic opportunity for Black owners and workers, wealth creation from these endeavors was restricted to the typical parties. Fast food corporations harvested the profits of their Black franchises, while being protected from operating risks due to the franchise model. White-owned “middleman” businesses were intimately involved in launching these “Black-owned” franchises, and enriched themselves as well. Chatelain also shows that while well-to-do Blacks were the best-positioned to capitalize on Black franchise opportunities, their paths to wealth in the industry were anything but certain. Her summaries of numerous legal battles and expansion conflicts shows how the power of these alleged Black capitalists was often quite conditional.
As Chatelain notes, we see the afterlives of this incomplete solution even today. As many people have noted, some of the main “corporate solutions” to the 2020 uprisings were an onslaught of positions and programs aiming to “diversify” various industries. This is certainly true in the planning world, where nearly every affordable housing organization now has a designated program for Black developers, but very few organizations are equally supporting ownership opportunities for Black tenants living in these “Black-developed” affordable housing units. Franchise shows how our current model was perfected in the franchising era: mass protests led by Black people directly impacted by police violence result in a few “good jobs” or favorable lines of credit for Black people in the professional-managerial class—be they franchisers or DEI consultants.
The shrinking articulations of community benefit
As a trained city/regional planner, I also really enjoyed the broader story Chatelain was painting about what franchise locations came to mean to Black communities. In many “post-riot” Black neighborhoods impacted by deindustrialization and suburbanization, fast-food locations were some of the only new storefronts to be found. Chatelain argues that because of this disparity, fast food franchises had an outsized role in protests about Black community development. To me, it was particularly clear that the “fast food resistance movement” is a precursor to the community benefits agreements (CBAs) that we see today.
Now that capital has “returned” to urban core neighborhoods, Black communities are often working to carve out a piece of the pie in major development projects that will impact their neighborhoods. While reading Franchise, I realized how so many of the tactics for these modern CBA fights (from boycotts to job promises) are directly inherited from the fast-food model. This moment set serious limits around what types of corporate benevolence communities could and couldn’t expect in expect in return for their patronage, and also on the types of commercial development that lenders would support.
Case in point: I am on the board of a Black food cooperative in Raleigh, and our challenges to open a community-owned grocery store in 2024 are still being influenced by the patterns of fast-food expansion and promotion that Chatelain describes. To this day, it is easier to get favorable financing to open a franchise location in a Black neighborhood than it is to open a grocery store. While this is partially due to the inherent racism of market studies (again, planning is the problem in everything), it’s also because of the long-established standard that simply opening a “Black-owned” store that employs Black workers (even at poverty wages) should be construed as community benefit. This, Chatelain argues, is something we can thank McDonald’s and Nixon for!!
Closing Thoughts + Slight Criticisms
As you can see, there is lots in this book to keep you thinking for weeks!!! Chatelain’s second book is certainly impressive, and often interesting. Unfortunately, there was just something in the execution that kept Franchise from feeling like a true 5-star read for me.
I think it has to do with the scope of this story. For instance, I had a better experience with Chatelain’s first book, South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration. By focusing more concretely on Chicago, it felt like she was able to keep the narrative a bit tighter, even while moving around to discuss different elements of migration realities (e.g. religion, reform, education, etc.) In Franchise, we are both jumping cities and jumping topics and I felt like everything wasn’t being tied together as skillfully as I would like. At the end of the book, Chatelain starts ramping up her discussion of fast food and health inequities, something that certainly makes sense as part of her research. Unfortunately, because of the hasty way it was introduced, and the lack of organization I already felt as a reader, I just felt like it was “too little, too late” for this topic. So, while I would recommend this book, I really wish it had a different editor.
To close, I will say that if anyone has any other recommendations about 1970s-1980s Black political histories, I am all open. The next book in my “Black Gen X” reading era will probably be Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia by Thomas Healy. Many of the books I find on this topic are decidedly focused on cities, but in my experience, a lot of the experiments in Black capitalism and political development also took place in the country! One example is Soul City, Floyd McKissick’s project in Warren County, NC. Soul City is of special interest to me, because it is 20 minutes from my where my family is from, and my cousin actually works at the Soul City Pool each summer! So, more thoughts on this theme then! 😊
Application Corner
In 2024, I am trying to discuss more IRL actions I can take in relation to the issues described in my nonfiction reads. As discussed in this review, I think the most notable takeaway from Franchise relates to the broader topic of equitable development in Black neighborhoods.
In my volunteer and work life, I am constantly inspired by the people and organizations that are counteracting the impossibly low standards for Black community development that were reinforced by the franchising movement. Many of these organizations are actively building the solidarity economy by forming alternative real estate models for everything from housing to retail. As any obnoxious bro-planner will tell you, this work is not yet scalable, but I don’t think that makes it any less valuable. As one of my favorite planning books (Sam Stein’s Capital City) notes, these “demonstration projects” help make the case for how much better it would be if we decommodified the places where we live and feed ourselves.
If you’re interested in supporting this work, a few of my favorite orgs are Fertile Ground Food Cooperative in Raleigh (the home team!), The Guild in Atlanta, and Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi. If you’re looking for a much larger list of solidarity economy organizations near you, definitely check out the directory and other resources from the New Economy Coalition. Finally, if you’re a planner trying to keep track of community ownership work in the affordable housing world, Shelterforce can often point you in the right (left?) direction.
January 6, 2022
Very interesting history about the role of McDonald’s and black capitalism in shaping the post-civil rights era. Chatelain powerfully calls out the limitations of capitalism and the private sector to affect change absent significant policy to address unequal systems and structures.
Not good for the existential crisis about my job, but learned a lot and really enjoyed!
Not good for the existential crisis about my job, but learned a lot and really enjoyed!
March 2, 2020
I enjoyed reading this. The author admits in the Acknowledgements that she essentially grew up at McDonalds. If you want the story of how fast food, and McDonalds in particular, came of age inside the black neighborhoods of America, look no further, you’ve picked up the right book, written by the right author.
Or have you?
On the plus side, you get the history of all boycotts, profiles of several franchisees, the role played by all prominent leaders of the civil rights movement, the victories and the price of the victories.
The author takes you from what she calls “Genesis” in St. Bernardino, CA, all the way to the present time, via the speech Martin Luther King gave days before his assassination regarding how “civil rights” should give their place to “silver rights” the very same year as Herman Petty opened the first black-owned McDonalds’ franchise.
You get chapter and verse on
• the Hough Uprising as a preamble to Operation Black Unity’s McDonald’s boycott in mayor Carl Stokes’ Cleveland,
• the Black Panthers’ alleged blackmailing of white franchisee Al Laviske’s to contribute to their Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren in the Albina neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, which ended up with riots and bombing
• the Ogontz Neighbor Association’s resistance to the establishment of a white-owned McDonalds’ restaurant in 1970 North Philadelphia
but also on the extension of Hamburger University to the South Side of Chicago, the successful efforts of the National Black McDonald’s Operators Association to bring ownership of franchises to black businessmen, the ingenuity of Tom Burrell in promoting McDonalds to a black audience and the irony in (racist) Nixon’s “bridges to human dignity” speech, which hardly differed in message from the tropes emanating from Jessie Jackson and Louis Farrakhan, if not from the admonishments issued by George Schuyler (p. 150)
Ultimately, however, the book lacks a clear message. The history is there, and this is a great place to read it, but should somebody ask me “what was the main idea of this book?” or “what do you think prompted the author to write this history?” I would be at a loss.
Most importantly, I did not get a sense of whether the author believes the Golden Arches were a force for good or not.
I thought the concluding chapter, the one where Marcia Chatelain gets a chance to reflect, would at the very least mention that from 2012 to 2015 McDonalds would have in Don Thompson its first black CEO. Not that this would erase a history of racism, not that everything is best in this best of possible worlds, but that hard work and determination is still helping black America reach milestone after milestone on a voyage that started with slavery and will eventually lead to full equality. Instead, I got some Naomi Klein mumbo jumbo.
That was very disappointing.
Or have you?
On the plus side, you get the history of all boycotts, profiles of several franchisees, the role played by all prominent leaders of the civil rights movement, the victories and the price of the victories.
The author takes you from what she calls “Genesis” in St. Bernardino, CA, all the way to the present time, via the speech Martin Luther King gave days before his assassination regarding how “civil rights” should give their place to “silver rights” the very same year as Herman Petty opened the first black-owned McDonalds’ franchise.
You get chapter and verse on
• the Hough Uprising as a preamble to Operation Black Unity’s McDonald’s boycott in mayor Carl Stokes’ Cleveland,
• the Black Panthers’ alleged blackmailing of white franchisee Al Laviske’s to contribute to their Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren in the Albina neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, which ended up with riots and bombing
• the Ogontz Neighbor Association’s resistance to the establishment of a white-owned McDonalds’ restaurant in 1970 North Philadelphia
but also on the extension of Hamburger University to the South Side of Chicago, the successful efforts of the National Black McDonald’s Operators Association to bring ownership of franchises to black businessmen, the ingenuity of Tom Burrell in promoting McDonalds to a black audience and the irony in (racist) Nixon’s “bridges to human dignity” speech, which hardly differed in message from the tropes emanating from Jessie Jackson and Louis Farrakhan, if not from the admonishments issued by George Schuyler (p. 150)
Ultimately, however, the book lacks a clear message. The history is there, and this is a great place to read it, but should somebody ask me “what was the main idea of this book?” or “what do you think prompted the author to write this history?” I would be at a loss.
Most importantly, I did not get a sense of whether the author believes the Golden Arches were a force for good or not.
I thought the concluding chapter, the one where Marcia Chatelain gets a chance to reflect, would at the very least mention that from 2012 to 2015 McDonalds would have in Don Thompson its first black CEO. Not that this would erase a history of racism, not that everything is best in this best of possible worlds, but that hard work and determination is still helping black America reach milestone after milestone on a voyage that started with slavery and will eventually lead to full equality. Instead, I got some Naomi Klein mumbo jumbo.
That was very disappointing.
January 10, 2021
This very rich delve into the history of fast food viewed through the lens of the black community frequently reads more like a university press publication than something for popular consumption. From a content perspective, that's an asset.
But I imagine limiting the scope of the book was a difficult thing to do. We start with the ascent of fast food franchises in segregated America and quickly transition into the civil rights era – boycotts, lawsuits, and decades of pressure from black communities. And truly, we get into issues that are more ongoing than historical. Chatelain doesn't just write about McDonald's – there's plenty of other history in here. She's really writing a story of racism and capitalism and, to a lesser degree, public health in America over the past century. A lot of it reads as 'this is how we got here', but because so many of these battles about racism and inequality are so familiar, it feels less like history and more like current affairs. The subtitle is "The Golden Arches in Black America" but it could easily have been "The Failed Promise of Black Capitalism in Post-Civil Rights America" instead. Fast food wasn't going to save black communities, and after 50 years we have enough perspective to know that.
But as she points out, "the meeting of burgers and black capitalism worked". As our food chain more and more became fast food chains, fast food "became black" and with it has come a host of other problems. When Chatelain writes, "Fast food franchises sought powerful holding companies and partnerships to open their restaurants in multiple locations and territories to capture the black dollars that were still up for grabs, as supermarkets and large retailers still ignored pockets of working-class and poor black America," she's writing about something that certainly hasn't gone away, and arguably is still happening. Ultimately, the author is writing a bigger book:
In the case of black consumers in the United States, these motivations are also shaped by racism and its hold over nearly every aspect of life – housing, education, health wealth, and socialization.
Fast food in black communities isn't a simple thing, and the thing that it's about isn't just fast food. And the story both stays the same and continues to evolve. I think Chatelain is pretty young. If we're both around in 30 years, I will probably enjoy reading the sequel.
But I imagine limiting the scope of the book was a difficult thing to do. We start with the ascent of fast food franchises in segregated America and quickly transition into the civil rights era – boycotts, lawsuits, and decades of pressure from black communities. And truly, we get into issues that are more ongoing than historical. Chatelain doesn't just write about McDonald's – there's plenty of other history in here. She's really writing a story of racism and capitalism and, to a lesser degree, public health in America over the past century. A lot of it reads as 'this is how we got here', but because so many of these battles about racism and inequality are so familiar, it feels less like history and more like current affairs. The subtitle is "The Golden Arches in Black America" but it could easily have been "The Failed Promise of Black Capitalism in Post-Civil Rights America" instead. Fast food wasn't going to save black communities, and after 50 years we have enough perspective to know that.
But as she points out, "the meeting of burgers and black capitalism worked". As our food chain more and more became fast food chains, fast food "became black" and with it has come a host of other problems. When Chatelain writes, "Fast food franchises sought powerful holding companies and partnerships to open their restaurants in multiple locations and territories to capture the black dollars that were still up for grabs, as supermarkets and large retailers still ignored pockets of working-class and poor black America," she's writing about something that certainly hasn't gone away, and arguably is still happening. Ultimately, the author is writing a bigger book:
In the case of black consumers in the United States, these motivations are also shaped by racism and its hold over nearly every aspect of life – housing, education, health wealth, and socialization.
Fast food in black communities isn't a simple thing, and the thing that it's about isn't just fast food. And the story both stays the same and continues to evolve. I think Chatelain is pretty young. If we're both around in 30 years, I will probably enjoy reading the sequel.
August 30, 2021
Very interesting book.
It's going to take a while to fully digest this book.
Early on, McDonalds was not a friend to Civil Rights.
Middle times it wasn't really a friend to Civil Rights, but it paid enough attention to Civil Rights issues that many started to believe it might be.
Later on McDonalds prentended to be strongly allied to Civil Rights, even thought it wasn't really.
And yet, despites these different faces McDonalds has played in the Civil Rights/Black Rights movement, McDonalds (more than any other franchise) has come to epitomize the Civil Rights Movement.
Chatelain does a great job in explaining how Macy-Dees became the symbol of Black Franchizes while at the same time as being relunctant to do so.
This diachotomy creates a view of McDonalds that is neither savior nor demon in the movment.
While the start of the book seemed to drag, because it didn't seem to have a cohesive point, the book seemed to glow at the end for the exact same reason---it didn't have a cohesive point.
Too often we want books or narratives to be wrapped up with nice little bow and concendences into simple narrative that we can walk away with. McDonalds is good/bad because of....! This book doesn't end that way.
There was a hell of a lot of good McDondald's did promoting black America, but there was a heck of a lot it failed to do.
The history is not perfect.
But too be honest with you, that's exactly how I like history to be.
Too often we look for black-and-white, but failt to see the gray.
McDonalds failed... but McDonald's succeeded.
It's going to take a while to fully digest this book.
Early on, McDonalds was not a friend to Civil Rights.
Middle times it wasn't really a friend to Civil Rights, but it paid enough attention to Civil Rights issues that many started to believe it might be.
Later on McDonalds prentended to be strongly allied to Civil Rights, even thought it wasn't really.
And yet, despites these different faces McDonalds has played in the Civil Rights/Black Rights movement, McDonalds (more than any other franchise) has come to epitomize the Civil Rights Movement.
Chatelain does a great job in explaining how Macy-Dees became the symbol of Black Franchizes while at the same time as being relunctant to do so.
This diachotomy creates a view of McDonalds that is neither savior nor demon in the movment.
While the start of the book seemed to drag, because it didn't seem to have a cohesive point, the book seemed to glow at the end for the exact same reason---it didn't have a cohesive point.
Too often we want books or narratives to be wrapped up with nice little bow and concendences into simple narrative that we can walk away with. McDonalds is good/bad because of....! This book doesn't end that way.
There was a hell of a lot of good McDondald's did promoting black America, but there was a heck of a lot it failed to do.
The history is not perfect.
But too be honest with you, that's exactly how I like history to be.
Too often we look for black-and-white, but failt to see the gray.
McDonalds failed... but McDonald's succeeded.
October 18, 2022
Probably 3.75 stars. The main through line and argument in this book is that African Americans had to turn to private business, specifically McDonalds in this book, to fill the gaps in social support that wasn’t provided to them by the US government. However, this led to a parasitic connection between McDonald’s and Black communities and still did not completely fill the role that should have been provided by a social support system.
I found this argument to be pretty clear but very academically written. This does not feel like something written for a lay audience. This book does the thing where it focuses on an individual story or person and then tries to us that to make a larger point. I don’t think that was particularly well done in this book. The connections felt tenuous in some cases and the stories were so broad that it did occasionally make it feel like the book lacked a clear focus.
Even with those issues, I did enjoy it. There are very interesting historical details in this book and it is interesting to see the effect of McDonald’s on the larger picture of Black capitalism. I don’t know if I would recommend this to everyone but it does have many interesting pieces.
I found this argument to be pretty clear but very academically written. This does not feel like something written for a lay audience. This book does the thing where it focuses on an individual story or person and then tries to us that to make a larger point. I don’t think that was particularly well done in this book. The connections felt tenuous in some cases and the stories were so broad that it did occasionally make it feel like the book lacked a clear focus.
Even with those issues, I did enjoy it. There are very interesting historical details in this book and it is interesting to see the effect of McDonald’s on the larger picture of Black capitalism. I don’t know if I would recommend this to everyone but it does have many interesting pieces.
January 27, 2020
Marcia Chatelain, an associate professor of history and African American Studies at Georgetown University, has written a powerful book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America that examines the unknown history of the civil rights movement and the expansion of the fast food franchising phenomena in black communities across America. The book largely uses McDonald’s as a window into the franchising of fast-food restaurants. The book fills a conspicuous gap in the historiography on McDonald’s, as Chatelain argues that while a rich body of scholarship exists on McDonald’s no previous study has examined the way in which the famed “Golden Arches” elbowed its way into black America and in fact, owes much of its success to the black communities.
The meticulously researched book shows the strength of historian Chatelain. As an historian, I appreciated the contextual arcs that she deftly draws for the reader. McDonald’s was founded in San Bernardino, California, by the two McDonald brothers and later grown into a thriving business by Ray Kroc’s efforts. But, this is the history that many may already be aware of. The fascinating history that has remained hidden is the growth of the McDonald’s franchising under the Nixon administration of the late 1960s-early 1970s. This was a blind spot in my own historical knowledge, as the author shows how the Nixon administration largely flouted civil rights protections (this is the era of the Nixon “silent majority” after all which I was aware of) and instead sought to promote small business grants. Thus, the birth of black fast food franchise ownership. It was a shell game of sorts where Nixon could appear to support black communities while rejecting protection of civil rights. “Black capitalism” came with a price as fast food restaurants sprang up but loans for homegrown businesses such as barber shops, hair salons, and Black bookstores were roundly rejected.
While inroads were made in the black franchising in some communities such as Chicago, others like Cleveland proved resistant to black entrepreneurship. As Chatelain shows a “burger boycott” wherein the black community flexed their purchasing power by refusing to patronize white-owned McDonald’s crippled these establishments. By the late 1970s, many Black communities had grown weary of fast food businesses springing up in their neighborhoods while other services and job opportunities remained scarce. Sensing the market pressures, McDonald’s shrewdly developed a marketing strategy tailored to black buyers. For a period time the slogan “Get Down With Something Good at McDonald’s” supplanted the “You Deserve a Break Today” campaign that brought in white consumers but had little meaning for black patrons. Ad campaigns like this one keenly tried to capitalize on the “hearts and minds” of Black patrons.
Despite the acceptance by Black communities during the 1970s-1980s in the success of black entrepreneurs, by the 2000s that dream of economic advancement had fizzled. Instead, fast food was perceived as a dead-end job option. Black communities vocalized the call for job training and the concept of the “food deserts” where fast food overpopulated Black communities and grocery stores offering fresh fruits and vegetables hardly existed at all. Chatelain is quick to point out that realizing the actual history of fast food restaurants in Black communities places the discussion of food deserts and health concerns in a larger context. She presciently concludes, “In the ongoing, yet still superficial, public conversation about fast food, race, and health, we have to remember that our catastrophic disparities are a result of structural indifference to the depth of black hunger for everything from nutritious foods to well-compensated jobs and strong communites to racial justice.”
This book shows that when the public debate focuses on “bad choices” made by African Americans who opt for fast food instead of healthier choices tends to obscure the way in which capitalism has intersected with racism to yield few options. The longstanding history of fast food franchises is such communities as South Central Los Angeles and Cleveland are upended by Chatelain’s outstanding book. I highly recommend it for those interested in African American history, economic history, and intersections of race and capitalism.
The meticulously researched book shows the strength of historian Chatelain. As an historian, I appreciated the contextual arcs that she deftly draws for the reader. McDonald’s was founded in San Bernardino, California, by the two McDonald brothers and later grown into a thriving business by Ray Kroc’s efforts. But, this is the history that many may already be aware of. The fascinating history that has remained hidden is the growth of the McDonald’s franchising under the Nixon administration of the late 1960s-early 1970s. This was a blind spot in my own historical knowledge, as the author shows how the Nixon administration largely flouted civil rights protections (this is the era of the Nixon “silent majority” after all which I was aware of) and instead sought to promote small business grants. Thus, the birth of black fast food franchise ownership. It was a shell game of sorts where Nixon could appear to support black communities while rejecting protection of civil rights. “Black capitalism” came with a price as fast food restaurants sprang up but loans for homegrown businesses such as barber shops, hair salons, and Black bookstores were roundly rejected.
While inroads were made in the black franchising in some communities such as Chicago, others like Cleveland proved resistant to black entrepreneurship. As Chatelain shows a “burger boycott” wherein the black community flexed their purchasing power by refusing to patronize white-owned McDonald’s crippled these establishments. By the late 1970s, many Black communities had grown weary of fast food businesses springing up in their neighborhoods while other services and job opportunities remained scarce. Sensing the market pressures, McDonald’s shrewdly developed a marketing strategy tailored to black buyers. For a period time the slogan “Get Down With Something Good at McDonald’s” supplanted the “You Deserve a Break Today” campaign that brought in white consumers but had little meaning for black patrons. Ad campaigns like this one keenly tried to capitalize on the “hearts and minds” of Black patrons.
Despite the acceptance by Black communities during the 1970s-1980s in the success of black entrepreneurs, by the 2000s that dream of economic advancement had fizzled. Instead, fast food was perceived as a dead-end job option. Black communities vocalized the call for job training and the concept of the “food deserts” where fast food overpopulated Black communities and grocery stores offering fresh fruits and vegetables hardly existed at all. Chatelain is quick to point out that realizing the actual history of fast food restaurants in Black communities places the discussion of food deserts and health concerns in a larger context. She presciently concludes, “In the ongoing, yet still superficial, public conversation about fast food, race, and health, we have to remember that our catastrophic disparities are a result of structural indifference to the depth of black hunger for everything from nutritious foods to well-compensated jobs and strong communites to racial justice.”
This book shows that when the public debate focuses on “bad choices” made by African Americans who opt for fast food instead of healthier choices tends to obscure the way in which capitalism has intersected with racism to yield few options. The longstanding history of fast food franchises is such communities as South Central Los Angeles and Cleveland are upended by Chatelain’s outstanding book. I highly recommend it for those interested in African American history, economic history, and intersections of race and capitalism.
February 16, 2020
This was a little drier than I wanted, but still illuminating. It covers the history of McDonald's as we know it today, and expands out to the black franchise owners in the 1960s to the myth and man La-Van Hawkins and finishes, briefly, by touching on the Fight For $15 protests of the early 2010s. The struggle for civil rights, and community-owned spaces, is woven throughout.
I enjoyed the personal stories more than anything, and wish there had been more of them. I appreciate the amount of research that went into this, and wonder if a copy shouldn't be kept in that unofficial McDonald's museum.
I enjoyed the personal stories more than anything, and wish there had been more of them. I appreciate the amount of research that went into this, and wonder if a copy shouldn't be kept in that unofficial McDonald's museum.
June 13, 2020
This was one of the most frustrating books to read as an audiobook - I really wanted to be underlining, annotating, and be able to flip back to certain pages. Also, the audiobook didn't have the list of sources or acknowledgements! That said, it is a fantastic book. This book questions why the relationship between black communities and fast food restaurants is only explored superficially and on a health-basis, instead of questioning the history of black capitalism and the ways that franchised restaurants were seen as a savior to communities that needed more money and more jobs. Chatelain uses a McDonalds damaged in the protests and riots in Ferguson as a bookend to demonstrate the on-going role that McDonalds plays in protests, going back to civil rights era thinking about the pros of black capitalism and black-owned franchises, and it's an effective frame to her argument. It makes it unfortunately all too easy to connect the history of fast food in black America to the present. She points to private enterprises being held up as leaders in the community -creating job programs, sponsoring youth sports, donating to schools - when money gained from capitalism should not be trusted to solve community problems of wealth and access. To read Franchise at this moment felt like the epilogue of the book was playing out in front of me as I was reading about so many historical protests and riots as a result of unnecessary deaths of black people.
February 15, 2020
This is a book that works on so many levels. I read with shame for being clueless about what people of color went through trying, among many other things, to find a restaurant that would feed them. It shows that fast food welcomed African Americans not out of the goodness of their hearts but because there was money to be made.
It goes deep into the intersection between racism and capitalism that will make you think long after the book is over. My two favorite quotes:
Decades of failed attempts to use capitalism as a balm, a shield, or an antidote to the sting, force, and toxicity of racism has failed to change the narrative that what ailing communities need most are fast food restaurants.
A public that decries fast food as a matter of bad choices is a public that is ignorant to the fact that the meaning of racism and capitalism can only produce demeaning and uncomfortable options.
I almost was afraid my last comment would seem to demean this book, but this is the rare book where even the acknowledgments were fun to read. It shows the care that went into this book.
It goes deep into the intersection between racism and capitalism that will make you think long after the book is over. My two favorite quotes:
Decades of failed attempts to use capitalism as a balm, a shield, or an antidote to the sting, force, and toxicity of racism has failed to change the narrative that what ailing communities need most are fast food restaurants.
A public that decries fast food as a matter of bad choices is a public that is ignorant to the fact that the meaning of racism and capitalism can only produce demeaning and uncomfortable options.
I almost was afraid my last comment would seem to demean this book, but this is the rare book where even the acknowledgments were fun to read. It shows the care that went into this book.
March 20, 2021
This is so little about McD Franchisees. Addresses McD corporate and interactions with various orgs demanding equity. Wanders away from McD to other fast food concepts, adding little to the overall themes.
While one of main themes is the fight for more minority Franchisees certain very basic questions are neither framed or answered. Did black Franchisees make money? Was it any different from white owners in white communities?
More about social protest and boycott than any appreciation for the actual business. If that's what the author intended, good for her. Not what I anticipated.
While one of main themes is the fight for more minority Franchisees certain very basic questions are neither framed or answered. Did black Franchisees make money? Was it any different from white owners in white communities?
More about social protest and boycott than any appreciation for the actual business. If that's what the author intended, good for her. Not what I anticipated.
December 1, 2020
The topic itself is very interesting. It's the writing that drag the book down. The language was unclear, with way too many subordinate clauses. These extra intermixed facts in the middle of arguments were confusing, and I could read large sections without understanding a single thing of what the author wanted to tell me. Hence, too much details and unnecessary connections to other topics, and still left me with so many unanswered questions for the main topic.
September 8, 2020
The topic is fascinating and goes in unexpected places. However, it was a fairly academic and dry read, and also left me with more questions than answers (although maybe that’s a point in the book’s favor).
February 15, 2021
This was a struggle to get through, and I think the author loses the forest for the trees. But, it’s on a very interesting topic and presents a compelling argument that fast food has replaced the role of the government (in some cases assisted by the government to do so) in Black communities.
January 30, 2023
This was a very readable history of the complicated relationship between McDonald's restaurants and black communities in the United States. Foregrounding her argument with the knowledge that black consumers historically ate more McDonald's than other demographics and that locations in black neighbourhoods made up many of the most profitable stores in the nation, Chatelain explores the sometimes tense relationship between McDonald's, black capitalism and economic development in black communities.
Chatelain argues that, in the face of the difficultly blacks had in accessing capital and starting businesses in the second half of the twentieth century, fast food franchises offered a way forward for black businessmen looking to use black capitalism to create wealth for themselves and their community. She explores the openness of McDonald's to move into profitable black neighbourhoods (suburban consumers viewed McDonald's as a treat; black inner city buyers viewed McDonald's as a cheap, easily accessible meal on the go between shifts or other business) and the uneven relationship compared with other franchisees.
If you're interested in the reasons that some American black neighborhoods are so saturated with fast food franchises (and a dearth of supermarkets), you might enjoy this historical mongraph.
Chatelain argues that, in the face of the difficultly blacks had in accessing capital and starting businesses in the second half of the twentieth century, fast food franchises offered a way forward for black businessmen looking to use black capitalism to create wealth for themselves and their community. She explores the openness of McDonald's to move into profitable black neighbourhoods (suburban consumers viewed McDonald's as a treat; black inner city buyers viewed McDonald's as a cheap, easily accessible meal on the go between shifts or other business) and the uneven relationship compared with other franchisees.
If you're interested in the reasons that some American black neighborhoods are so saturated with fast food franchises (and a dearth of supermarkets), you might enjoy this historical mongraph.
February 18, 2022
An interesting look at Black economics through McDonalds and other fast food chains and their impact on the Black community. It's honestly quite a dry read and even though it's an average length book that I would normally read in a day or two, it took me nearly 3 weeks to finish. It's very much an Economics book and did feel like it was very well researched.
It's packed full of information and I learned a lot about the challenges Black business owners faced in the past and continue to face today. The author talks about how important it is for Black businesses to give back to their local community, and how their customers will hold them to that responsibility, which isn't the norm for White businesses. It even mentions the movie Coming to America and how the McDowell's chain is obviously an exaggerated depiction of a Black owned business, but it did point out a lot of the real life challenges owners face.
I would recommend this book as a unique look at Black history, but you have to put in some effort to get through it.
It's packed full of information and I learned a lot about the challenges Black business owners faced in the past and continue to face today. The author talks about how important it is for Black businesses to give back to their local community, and how their customers will hold them to that responsibility, which isn't the norm for White businesses. It even mentions the movie Coming to America and how the McDowell's chain is obviously an exaggerated depiction of a Black owned business, but it did point out a lot of the real life challenges owners face.
I would recommend this book as a unique look at Black history, but you have to put in some effort to get through it.
September 11, 2025
So glad I found Professor Chatelain's excellent survey of one corporation's complicated role in the economics of civil rights, black economic empowerment, and America's health crisis. She explores core American variants of capitalism and racism through the story of McDonalds and its franchise model of corporate growth. So much of what happened in places like Portland and Philadelphia around black franchisees, in the context of the civil rights movement in the '60s and '70s, was new to me. The book is beautifully written and well-documented, as you would expect from a noted historian. Just such an insightful read.
October 10, 2021
I really don't know where to begin. This turned out to be an investigation and quality effort to illuminate immensly complex subjects. Sorry for all the "i" words, but, just, wow. I ... learned .... so much. I was aware of many of the core issues Chatelain covers but had no clue of how interwoven they all were. Excellent analysis. I am in awe of how well she traced out the elements to help the reader understand how deeply difficult it has been to find real, meaningful, long-term solutions.
February 21, 2022
Franchise is so wonky and great! Marcia Chatelain’s interrogation of McDonalds and Black capitalism is a story much bigger than the eponymous chain. In her words: “Before another garden bed is prepared or a vegan recipe is shared and demonstrated in the name of food justice, the concerned must have a thorough and deep deliberation on racial capitalism.” A quote by Cynthia Greenlee in the promotional copy likening this tale to its analogues in reproductive rights is a real, non-automated chef’s kiss.
August 16, 2024
A bit dry but very engaging.
July 10, 2021
Marcia Chatelain won the Pulitzer Prize this year in 2021 in the history category for her book, Franchise, The Golden Arches in Black America. This book reads like a documentary and it is quite interesting to learn about the role that fast food restaurants play in the Civil rights movement. You also get quite a bit of information about McDonald's and how they evolved since the 1960's in their relationship in the Black communities they operate in. This book is well researched and very informative. I give it 4 stars.
September 19, 2020
Interesting topic. Blacks, especially black men, are faithful and frequent patrons of McDonald’s. Beginning in the late 1960s (the disturbances following King’s assassination were a catalyst) McDonald’s sought out black franchisees. How did that effort work out? Was it good or bad for black America?
Really interesting questions. The author, a historian by training, has researched the topic from top to bottom.
But this publication seems more like a first draft than a ready-to-print book. There are three basic issues here.
1
—
The author didn’t address the questions I wanted to learn about:
-What, exactly, does a franchisee do?
-How much does it cost to buy a franchise?
-Was there good evidence to support the claim that blacks who wanted to become franchisees were unfairly steered into what she calls “inner city” locations? She reports the claim, but doesn’t investigate it.
-How did franchisees overcome the challenges of operating in locations with high crime? For example, she does mention that the Blackstone Rangers, a Chicago gang, tried to extort the first Chicago area McDonald’s owned by a Black franchisee. How did the franchisee overcome their extortion attempts?
Detailed answers to these questions would have given the book more texture, more authenticity.
2
—
The author squanders an opportunity to help us dear white people understand how blacks experience America and how that experience so differs from ours. The chapter on advertising partly addresses this issue. I learned that black girls compete in jump roping (“double Dutch”) competitions! And that black marching bands, especially from the historically black colleges, execute complex, rhythmic formations. I wish there had been pictures of these practices. I still have to check YouTube.
I learned also that the McChicken sandwich (later “chicken nuggets”) was a difficult sell initially because true home-made fried chicken is a treasured traditional dish. No surprise that the faux food dish was initially disdained. But how was that disdain overcome?
3
—
The author is a terrible prose stylist. Paragraphs that stretch on damn near forever (over two pages in one case), larded with chaff she probably copied from Wikipedia. Sentences that reach for the poetic but land on incoherence.
One example of the last issue (page 72):
“Fast food’s entry into the inner city was also contingent on the alignment of federal policy and shifts in the ideological perspective on what black Americans needed at the precipice of the 1970s.”
What does that mean? What is the “ideological perspective” she mentions? Does she really mean “precipice” (cliff edge), or does she mean “start”? I have the feeling that “start” was too simple a word so she’s fancied up her sentence with a word that muddies her communication.
Easy writing, hard reading.
Marcia, I am a developmental editor and a copy editor. I can help you conceptualize and organize your book (that’s the developmental editor part) and clarify your prose (that’s the copy editor part).
Call someone like me next time. All that research deserves a better presentation.
Really interesting questions. The author, a historian by training, has researched the topic from top to bottom.
But this publication seems more like a first draft than a ready-to-print book. There are three basic issues here.
1
—
The author didn’t address the questions I wanted to learn about:
-What, exactly, does a franchisee do?
-How much does it cost to buy a franchise?
-Was there good evidence to support the claim that blacks who wanted to become franchisees were unfairly steered into what she calls “inner city” locations? She reports the claim, but doesn’t investigate it.
-How did franchisees overcome the challenges of operating in locations with high crime? For example, she does mention that the Blackstone Rangers, a Chicago gang, tried to extort the first Chicago area McDonald’s owned by a Black franchisee. How did the franchisee overcome their extortion attempts?
Detailed answers to these questions would have given the book more texture, more authenticity.
2
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The author squanders an opportunity to help us dear white people understand how blacks experience America and how that experience so differs from ours. The chapter on advertising partly addresses this issue. I learned that black girls compete in jump roping (“double Dutch”) competitions! And that black marching bands, especially from the historically black colleges, execute complex, rhythmic formations. I wish there had been pictures of these practices. I still have to check YouTube.
I learned also that the McChicken sandwich (later “chicken nuggets”) was a difficult sell initially because true home-made fried chicken is a treasured traditional dish. No surprise that the faux food dish was initially disdained. But how was that disdain overcome?
3
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The author is a terrible prose stylist. Paragraphs that stretch on damn near forever (over two pages in one case), larded with chaff she probably copied from Wikipedia. Sentences that reach for the poetic but land on incoherence.
One example of the last issue (page 72):
“Fast food’s entry into the inner city was also contingent on the alignment of federal policy and shifts in the ideological perspective on what black Americans needed at the precipice of the 1970s.”
What does that mean? What is the “ideological perspective” she mentions? Does she really mean “precipice” (cliff edge), or does she mean “start”? I have the feeling that “start” was too simple a word so she’s fancied up her sentence with a word that muddies her communication.
Easy writing, hard reading.
Marcia, I am a developmental editor and a copy editor. I can help you conceptualize and organize your book (that’s the developmental editor part) and clarify your prose (that’s the copy editor part).
Call someone like me next time. All that research deserves a better presentation.
March 25, 2020
Ms. Chatelain sells herself short in the title of the book which is not confined to only the history of McDonalds and the black community. Ms. Chatelain gives the reader a history of the rise of franchises, the pros and cons of those ventures, and also the founding of McDonalds. She then follows up with a history of how McDonalds interacted with the black community, as customers, employees, allies, and franchisees. I kept expecting to find a cohesive sentence that announced whether the relationship was good or bad for the black community. But instead, Ms. Chatelain did an excellent job of presenting a very balanced picture showing that although in the end, it was a better deal for McDonalds, there were some positives for both sides. This would be a great companion read to The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap whose author is quoted.
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