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 whither.