Historian Marcia Chatelain, Ph.D., discusses her book “Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America” (Liveright, 2020). The talk will be followed by a Q&A.

The event is free and open to all, but registration is required. For questions or accommodations, please contact the VCU Libraries Events Office at kimbrellgg@vcu.edu. Register online.

About the speaker

Marcia Chatelain, Ph.D., is a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Previously, she was a Reach for Excellence assistant professor of honors and African American studies at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Her first book, “South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration”(Duke University Press, 2015), is a reimagining of the mass exodus of Black Southerners to the urban North from the perspective of girls and teenage women. Her latest book is “Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America” (Liveright, 2020). She has recived numerous honors and most recently was named a 2019 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. She received her B.A. in journalism and religious studies from St. Ignatius College Prep at the University of Missouri-Columbia and her AM and Ph.D. in American civilization at Brown University. She is a native of Chicago.

About the book

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? “Franchise” 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. “Franchise” tells a troubling success story of an industry that blossomed the very moment a freedom movement began to wither.

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