The Golden Arches in Black America

Marcia Chatelain
In Conversation with Allyson Hobbs

Hear 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 her new book, 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 had found an economic answer to the problem of racial inequality.

Marcia Chatelain, Ph.D. 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.

Allyson Hobbs, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of United States History and Director of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the award-winning author of A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life.