Franchise
“This isn’t just a story of exploitation or, conversely, empowerment; it’s a cautionary tale about relying on the private sector to provide what the public needs and how promises of real economic development invariably come up short."
New York Times
An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History
Winner of the 2022 James Beard Foundation Award in Writing
The untold history of how fast food became one of the greatest generators of Black wealth in America.
Just as The Color of Law provided a vital understanding of red-lining and racial segregation, Marcia Chatelain’s Franchise investigates the complex interrelationship between Black communities and America’s largest, most popular fast food chain.
Taking us from the first McDonald’s drive-in in San Bernardino to the franchise on Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Missouri, in the summer of 2014, Chatelain shows how fast food is a source of both power―economic and political―and despair for African Americans. As she contends, fast food is, more than ever before, a key battlefield in the fight for racial justice.
Praise