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recording, please come to the mic so it can be heard on the recording. i will remind you of that. let's begin. welcome marcia. golden arches and black america and she's in conversation with elizabeth. >> thank you, ladies.et [applause] >> thank you all for coming today. it's a pleasure, a beautiful day outside. when to be more interesting in this room as we dig into this really important part of history so i'm thrilled to be here. professor of history, georgetown university, the official bio but i want to say, pulitzer prize winner 2021 history.

[applause]e] >> i get a chill so citation read this white and one reason i'm going to read out loud is there was a big luncheon this year because of covid so i don't know if you have had a stranger read this to you ever so i am going to do it so this amazing book, franchise golden arches and black america, citation read this way from nuanced account of the complicated role of the fast food industry plays in african-american communities, corporate race and capitalism of masterfully illustrating the fight for civil rights has been intertwined with black

businesses. it's a smart and capacious book in a work of history that goes way beyond what you know about the golden arches, entrepreneurial spirit and calorie count of happy meal and this really important d story of how the purveyor of food shaped political culture, the economy and so many cities around the country. it's really important history and a lens that i don't think people have thought about the way you have so i am thrilled to be here.

mcdonald's is embedded into the american subconscious, i'm sure a stones throw from here but it's a paradox because it simultaneously history off opportunity but also an opportunity for exploitation, a national story but also a chicago story so let's begin in chicago and i marcia, your first book was southside girls growing up in late migration. here we are in chicago where you grew up, what was your first mcdonald's experience? >> i want to say thank you to everyone for joining us and thank you for thiss invitation o talk about my book, i got up

this morning and took a walk around downtown and it was emotional having grown upg here having so many afterschool jobs ini the neighborhood. i could count the number of places where i got a paycheck around the city and i want to return to that because mcdonald's for me was at the center i think of my budding social life as a young adult so we ate mcdonald's a lot as kids because in the 80s, that's what you did. there was no social shaming lettings your kids eat mcdonalds and so that's what we did all the time but as i got older, mcdonald's became the site of our social lives. a number of people i went to high school with and people of the same age and that was our social media, we didn't havee cell phones but we would just meet at mcdonald's so in many ways i saw it as an ever present part of my social world and also

the place i could argue particularly my independence but mcdonald's had two distinct places. one in its underwriting of so much of the black cultural life of chicago which was how i started thinking about this book if you think about the parade, some of the activities happening at the museum emerging as my own participation in wgn broadcast heritage, all of these things are written by black owners. growing up in the 90s, and 80s, job opportunities for color, mcdonald's was up there with abbott lab and providing entry points for a lot of black college students so in many ways i think being in chicago mcdonald's means a bit of a

different thing than other cities. >> i know mcdonald's was launched by ray croc and the franchise started and it really is a story of the franchise industry capitalism so how does that work for mcdonald's? >> mcdonald's grows out of socal and one thing i c talk about in the book is when we think about how people talk and write about mcdonald's, they frame it as an incredible story of innovation which it is, getting so many people food so quickly is a really big deal for the food industry in the 40s and 50s but i like to think about in terms of what does it say about america's racial history? what does it say about s businesses that grow up around the highway system?

a source of terror and anxiety for black travelers. what we think about fast food in communities that had all sorts of legal means of excluding african-americans? so when we get to where franchising becomes growth opportunity for business, it is exciting because it's a moment in which you don't have to have a lot of is this experience or have had own a family business to make it big which is so american. you can own something you don't really own it, you can own your house that really bank of america owns my house. you can be successful without a formal education which is one of the promises of american industry. people were in love with the idea of franchising because someone has done all of the hard work but you have to assume risk and liability do an incredible amount of work to make it work.

>> thinking about chicago, great story -- can you talk about the first black franchise owner? >> mcdonald's was founded in 46 so the original mcdonald's in san bernardino was inro the 40s, it moves to chicago and 55, ray croc and he's incredibly ambitious and he says we can have a mcdonald's and every bedroom community for african-americans don't really get an entry into franchising until 68 and it's immediately after king's assassination and i think for us having grown up in a world in which martin luther king jr. is a hero, it's easy to not know or misunderstand king in his moment was not a good guy and history so after his

assassination, it's work over the past three decades luther king is a hero but in 1968 after the uprisings in reaction to his death, after all of this confirmation about the direction of civil rights movement, there is incredible encouragement for black-owned business under this umbrella so the first african-american to franchise a mcdonald's, he's in that moment where there is federal pressure to open up business opportunities for african-americans mcdonald's gets involved in it knowing be a number of white franchise owners who do not want to do business in black communities anymore, they are incredibly chilled by the offense after king's assassination and mcdonald's starts recruiting lack franchise owners to serve predominately black communities and what they discover soon after his it's very profitable for a number of

reasons. >> very profitable for some of them. >> it's very good introspective franchising but it's called black stories of the time, black stores yield very good profits because they are often located in communities where there's not a lot of competing businesses. market research shows african-american consumers go to mcdonald's more often than their white counterparts but the franchise owner doesn'thi necessarily see all of the profit so early on mcdonald's intervenes to try to create a baseline program so black franchise owners can keep their stores. some people do lose their stores in the early years but by 75, 76, there is a real sense that this is something that can work. if you put black franchise owners in black communities, you

not only take advantage changing landscape of inner-city business but you have a loyal customer base because people feel they are patronizing a black-owned business and it's incredibly important for politics of the time. >> but then it becomes a p trade-off between do we want mcdonald's or community center? can you explain how that was interwoven together? >> one thing that happens is mcdonald's is becoming more present in chicago and cleveland in los angeles, philadelphia, portland, oregon, community groups are trying to decide if they like mcdonald's or not. it something to talk about in the book, a world in which mcdonald's wasn't presupposition, i hear this often, has anyone in the

audience never been toon mcdonald's? or doesn't know what is? only twice this is happened.na dozens of events i've had around the books, they've never eaten mcdonald's they were both raised by vega nutritionists. [laughter] they've never had mcdonald's, they don't know what it is. there's a period of time where this is not a fixture in every community so as mcdonald's is growing in terms of its presence in black communities, community groups are starting to question whether or not they will contribute to the health and wellness at the people around it so there are different protests where people say mcdonald's is going to be here, it has to be black franchise. if mcdonald's is going to be here, they have to contribute to the free breakfastre campaign. if mcdonald's will be here, they will help us paper apart and that's an early moment before corporate responsibility had its playbook and mcdonald's is

trying to decide if they should do this or not. some of these are so mind blowing from the perspective of 2021 where there's a whole officer people telling you how tor not to sound racist or say some things but and 78, 79, even the 1980s, everything is still on the table and it's the part of the history i find fascinating, how do we set standards and template for how corporations interacted with communities? >> so interesting. how do you think, the government really supports the expansion of mcdonald's by highways where drivers can find them easily, and otherwise how has society

been complicit in this expansion of mcdonald's? >> one thing we see during this time. and it felt strange in 20202 here are some of the rhetoric from 68 being recycled. one of the reasons why there's so much unrest in the 1960s, it's not because people want more businesses necessarily, they want the fundamental things you need for a good quality of life. fair equal housing, good schools for your children, access to healthcare, jobs that pay more than starvation wages. the issues are very clear and it arems the federal government says we are not going to deliver on the promises off the civil rights on the war on poverty part of people have their own businesses maybe they will be appeased by this and thise is my most cynical grubby self but. [laughter] there's something about that i find so appalling but i

understand why it's seductive in 1968. there's a large-scale failure of the federal government to livern up to any of the promises of the legislative and reforms that have happened relative to black rights. so people are saying not going to be protected in these ways, maybe we have aed business, maye we become m self-sustaining but small businesses particularly but very few businesses have the power and weav have yet to have one, toet undo civil right abuses, no company can innovate respecting someone's right to vote or ending police brutality so during this period of time we know people are thinking maybe it's true but in 2020 we have no excuse for thinking the appropriate response to the george flores boyd would be to buy from mark businesses but this is what t we are presenteds a potential solution to the

problem. >> continues to this day. so what you're talking about is so perfectly expressed on the cover of your bookou, i don't kw if people can see because it's in paperback but you talk about the cover of a book, it captures a moment that's important. >> thank you, i'm glad you asked. i love the picture so much. it's of a gentleman who's giving the oath of voting to a woman in the parking lot of a mcdonald's the picture is from the neighborhood and comportment, one of the things i appreciated in the research process was i was able to write about black history in the pacific northwest but she's getting her right to vote at a mcdonald's, hence the

title franchise, you see what my editor did there. she came up with the title, i wasn't that great. but what does it mean for mcdonald's to be the space in which black rights are being pursued and realize? it's like so depressing.al [laughter] i think it's a cautionary tale to all i of us to think this is where this needs to happen and i think what i am most concerned with is saying we do actually have the tools to address racial injustice but if we keep on suggesting market-based solutions or market activity is going to do this, then we will continue to see these cycles of history. >> i want to quickly ask about advertising, advertising for mcdonald's was so expensive. one of the biggest campaigns

ever. can you talk about morale and the company? >> morale communications was so important for this because what's happening in terms of the marketplace is that 1968 is the culmination in many i ways of my years of racial unrest and i think the death of king adds to where the country is and other political issues so corporations are feeling indicted and thinking, how are we going to reach out? how will we be more inclusive? what they do is start investing in black advertising agents, agencies and black creative marketing and black market research companies. they take mcdonald's on and create a series of ads that are supposed to speak to the black consumer and there's an anecdote how they try to sell

african-american consumers on you deserve a break today and it doesn't work, what break? it's 1968 america, look around. all of this is to say that this is something i came to appreciate during the research of this book because there aren't a lot of african-americans on television during this time. it's a very bigot deal and even when i was a kid growing up in the 80s, it was a big deal to see these commercials, not only black actors and actresses singers but to see black creative talent have a place to start because producing commercials being the backup singers, being a dancer in a commercial, this was the platform before the internet and if you spend as much time on youtube as i do watching old mcdonald's commercials, there are some really big c stars who get started in these commercials so wanted to make sure this book

although there is a lot of akpolicy history and civil righs history acknowledging creative work that was able to shift some of the representation into the 80s and 90s. >> it had such the power, can you talk about archival work? finding that photo for instance, this is not corporate history of mcdonald's. they didn't open up their archives. >> no they didn't. [laughter] i think it was actually a blessing, it forced meiv to be creative and go around and find interesting stuff. talk about that process. where did you go? >> i went everywhere. i can't believe i did this, i really can't. when i think about the amount on times i got on an airplane and

stayed for days at a library to get three pieces of paper, the excitement. this is the life of a historian. i tell my students and you are twitter and there's something that's gone viral and you spendnd maybe 40 minutes trying to find its origins and you feel proud of yourself? that is my job. [laughter] so mcdonald's has its own archive not open it it's a corporation, how do i tell a story about mcdonald's? this is about shifting the lens. when i tell a story about black american 68, mcdonald's is everywhere. when i look at the papers of people like julian bond, mcdonald's is everywhere. when i look at archives of the christian leadership conference for theth naacp, mcdonald's is everywhere. i think we often think about relationships of power so people say was an archive of blank

fraud black franchise voters of the early class? no but if i think about critically the places they donated money to, community groups interacted with them, i could have written ten books about mcdonald's and black america but i think it's a cautionary tale who we center and consider are important makers of history and why, i am excited about the possibility of a graduate student reading this book and think this is the worst book i've ever read, i'll go back to the same archives and i'm going to write a better version of it because these are possible but political. there has to be programs inre which you can study african-american history, there has tofr be people who advise yu to do that. it's not magic, it's about changing who and what we think about in the places that trained scholars to do that kind of work. >> it's always interesting to me

how you, a journalist, i met you as a summer intern. >> our desk was catty corner. [laughter] >> one part in history, your phd, in american civilization? which i think is a more expansive way to look at history. it makes me think maybe that is ake reason you are so smart abot .rchives >> being an interdisciplinary piece,on your program pushes you to think about the different places where knowledge can be produced so it's not just papers put in a newspaper archive or a collection of historical

society, it something you see on youtube or television, a conversation somebody has got access to but one thing, being back. home and being reflective about this trajectory, a lot of what is possible inside th book and in my career was because i grew up in a moment in which there were opportunity programs. this period of time, i am a generation from 68 but i benefited from affirmative action program from the scholarship programs, this idea that maybe we should try to t things change things a bit. the biggest difference between me and my student they are living in a world of fewer of those routes to opportunity and this is what i find most irritating about the cycles of history, and some ways i can chart the program that some were federally funded, some for private partnerships but ife cod

chart to work on me here. when i think about the number of resources students might have with technology, the same programs and possibilities aren't there and it'sgr somethig we have to be careful about in suggesting there's a moment where the work is done. we are always dealing with unfinished business and how do we return to a u place where we still want to expand opportunity erso aggressively? >> certainly you grapple with this because your book is an indictment of capitalism capitalism just can't see that. i think that's how i read your book. >> you read it correctly. [laughter] but i wanted to do it in a way that's sensitive and not so

arrogant to suggest that i am so much smarter than the entire mechanism capitalism that makes me want things or makes me excited when the new iphone comes c out, that's not entirely it but it is to say if we are going to be serious about inequalities born out of racism and we cannot constrain choices to a new mcdonald's becoming presence in the lives of people and then have the expectation that people will be well fed and healthy and have living wages and access to healthcare, these are compatible but when it comes to securing black rights, this is the place we turn to, the idea that theha marketplace can put something together to quell the deep inequalities people are

reacting to and having to make choices from. >> it seems people are eager in the contemporary light to condemn the fatty foods of mcdonald's and the bad food, less eager to contend with social implications of the business itself. >> it's so easy to castigate people's choices. i think this is a long practice especially throughout the 20th century were in a we have h ides of diets and good food and bad food. i want people to live healthy lives but i never want us to suggest a person consuming is more important the can the conditions that creates that set choices and for health practitioners and public policy people, there is a default position but african-american

choices should be the first place to go asic if all of the choices are equally constructed among all people. >> so what are the blocks to a new system emerging of franchises who would do vegan food? there's a vegan festival going on right now. people have always embraced different food movements, that's neither here nor there, i just don't want the impossible burger to determine healthcare. mcdonald's can make all the brokers they want, they can be fine but i want them to operate in civil and social context where workers don't make poverty

wages. >> rights, let's talk about franchise, the owner, let's talk about disenfranchise and the people who work there which are in your book. when i looked at your footnote, it seemed that those work great archival fineses. >> there is this moment where people are thinking okay, fast food jobs are first jobs. they are an entry into the marketplace and then people will have other tools necessary for social mobility but we will put no money into those tools, we will not createls regulatory structure on the quality of the jobs and when the nation is in financial crisis, there will not be extension of benefits in these jobs and then people wonder why can't you advance from these jobs?

when mcdonald's starts to get into black communities, there are two things that are interesting, one is a lot the black franchise owners are praise for bringing black women into working at mcdonald's. early mcdonald's brothers hired the young women who worked at their restaurants because they said they flirted, sexism is evergreen and slowly but surely you have young black women working at mcdonald's and some being able to become managers and seeing it as a great opportunity. mcdonald's sells itself to black consumers suggesting that the person working the counter would one day become a franchise owner and the streams that if you stay in long enough, you know how much capitol you need to franchise mcdonald's? markd' zuckerberg article a coue

of days agogo said his dad told him you could have a mcdonald's franchise or i could send you to harvard. isn't that a great story? to wrap our heads around it but the miss of the possibility franchise systemro is so powerfl but all of this is to say that the economy shifted rapidly so the jobs were not possible in terms of creating stable working families. the fight for 15 has effectively raised that consciousness among a lot of people but still $15 an hour wage is not enough. i used to live in oklahoma city and taught at the university of oklahoma and i remember when companies would come in and people would say these are great jobs and we don't have to pay a lot because oklahoma city isn't expensive as if this is the barometer for economic growth so this is how the fast food practices really mushroomed.

low wages, inconsistent scheduling, sexual harassment, no paid sick leave, workers are expendable, this is the moment we are contending with. >> we are running short on time. for any questions -- i know. please come up to the microphone if you have a question. >> i have one last question. >> i was going over in my mind some questions. >> hi, daniel -- i thought that was -- >> i'm glad you got to the last part because i was going to come to that. i grew up in the south and mcdonald's was my first job in my brothers and my nephews first job. when i moved to f los angeles, t was like i was supporting my

family with a job from mcdonald's. the fight for 15 would have been a great thing to have in 2011 but now it's an incredible insult almost all around the country. i'm wondering if you've seen any connection between the mutation between what mcdonald's was and the civil rights movement and the powell memo and their basic strategy and corporate america to push downve everything that happened with the civil rights movement. ... talking about archives that really blew my mind.g i was looking at mcdonald in the

60s. i found a number of instances in which they were involved in protests against segregation against mcdonald's. why is that not within the frame of the history? we have seen all of those iconic images and they are very much codified before there was segregation and then there was not an these are the places in which it happens. the arkansas movement and 6263, people are beaten by the police trying to do a protest of a segregated mcdonald's. it is not within the frame. sometimes i wonder because they had grafted themselves on the narrative of after kings death we did the socially responsible thing by recruiting black franchise owners.

and then they just kept on doing theset things. they were very early supporter of the martin luther king jr. holiday. and, so, while there is a lot of criticism of the practicesre through the labor practices, there's a lot of stuff about the environment in the 80s and 90s, their relationship to the period of the segregation has disappeared. i find that so strange. the whitewashing of history is really fascinating. any other questions? hi. >> hello. >> my question is, you mentioned the preacher comfort like

universal healthcare. necessary for society. you said the indictment of "the insider". why don't we see a lot of small business owners pushing for universal healthcare? why aren't they really behind that healthcare is the hardest thing to try to purchase to understand to try and work with. maybe i am wrong, i am missing out. why is that something? >> that is such an excellent point. the two issues that come up is franchise owners absorb a lot of the risk of the business. they are very much beholden to the corporate structure. this has become a chronic issue with the national labor relations board and determining who you work for.

if you work for mcdonald's, do you work for corporate or the franchise owner? they have gone. back and forth n this issue. taking care of workers. i think that the narrative of small business america has been that regulation will kill your business, your employees or people to be distrustful of and invested in all at the same time. we could create an incredible movement if we really are the fuel of america. every politician left and right makes this kind of claim. these are the kinds of things that we demand from the public in order to have our small businesses. this is why i always say danger, danger. they doo not employ anyone. the majority will never have the ability to rebuild the south side amid chicago or minneapolis. they just do not have that

capacity. if they have the floor, perhaps i can say if you really wantf black economic empowerment, this requires universal healthcare, precollege, free childcare. those things alone could transform the possibility of small businesses that can employ maybe one or two people. once, i think once we suggest that the public good undermines business, then we lose that possibility. >> i just have one quick question. people should rush out and buy this book. just give you a taste of it. you have a five -month-old baby. >> do you think you'll be able to go to mcdonald's? what are you going to want to do their? >> this is what i warned in my many months of parenting.

i cannot determine what my child after a certain point. raising a very sensitive child. whether it is what he eats or how he treats others. regardless of the choices he makes, he still my baby boy who i love so much.. the last thing that i will say is this has been an incredible year, i adopted a child, i won a pulitzer prize, in that order. this is not about me necessarily . this is like the points. you know, every scholarship

imaginable. able to do this. it is very meaningful. it does not necessarily mean that the work is over. >> you have done so much good work. [applause] >> offering a variety of podcasts. washington,washington today give latest from the nation's capital and every week business plus has in-depth interviews with writers about their latest works. an immense archive to look at how issues of the day developed over years. our occasional series features extensive conversations with historians about their lives and work. also available with podcasts. you can find them all on the c-span now mobile apps or

wherever you get your podcasts. >> american history tv. exploring people and even. 2:00 p.m. eastern on the presidency. bob weathers who wrote the president traveled by train. talking about the presidencies of abraham lincoln, franklin roosevelt, dwight eisenhower was her, george h.w. bush and one presidential staff. professor the new school success of the world the fitness industry played in 1980s american culture. new business models like jazzercise, the rise of fitness studios and the sales of vhs fitness tapes. watching american history