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please help me getting a special thank you to our sponsor. [applause] before we begin we ask you silence your cell phone and turn off camera flashes if you're taking photos at the end of the presentation we will be taking questions and there is a my care because c-span is recording please come to the mic so it can be heard on the recording i will remind you of that. let's begin. please welcome marcia chaplin she is the author of franchise the golden arches in black america. she is in conversation. thank you ladies. [applause] >> thank you. thankg you all for coming today. can you hear me? it is such a pleasure it is a

beautiful day outside. it i is going to be much more interesting to be in this room as weea dig into this really important part of history. so i'm thrilled to be here, eprofessor of history georgetown university is the official bio i just want to say, pulitzer prizeze winner 2021 history. [applause] and i get a chill, there's not a big luncheon or anything because of coated. i don't know if you have had a stranger read this to you ever. so i'm going to do it. this amazing book, franchise

golden arches in black america the citation read this b way, from an account of a complicated role of a fast food industry plays in african-american communities. of capitalism masterfully illustrates how the fight for civils rights has intertwined with the fate of black businesses. so, it is a smart and capacious book and a work of history that goes way beyond what you know abouthe the golden arches quit the calorie count of the happy meal and takes into this really important story of how this purveyor of

food actually shaped political culture, shape to the economy from really shaped so many cities around the country. it is really important history and it is a lens that i don't think people have thought about quite the way you have. i am really thrilled to be here. so, mcdonald's is indebted into the american subconscious. i'm sure it's us stones throw from here. it is a paradox because itt simultaneouslyta it's also it is a national story until let's begin in chicago, marcia your

first book with southside girls are growing up in the great migration. here we are in chicago where you grew up, what was your first mcdonald's experience?e? >> i just want to say thank you to everyone for joining us. thank you so much for this invitation to talk about my book. i got up early this morning and took a walk around downtown. it was so emotional having been up here and had so many afterschool jobs in this neighborhood. i could count the number of places i got a paycheck around the a city. and i want to return to that. mcdonald's for me was at the center, i think, of my budding social life as a young adult. so we ate at mcdonald's a lot as the kids because in the 80s that's what you did. there was no social shaming

about light letting your kids eat mcdonald's. that is what we did it. but ass i get older mcdonald's became the site of our social lives. there are number people went to high school a with, people who of the same age that was our social media. we didn't have cell phones but we could all meet at ana mcdonald's. so in many ways i really saw it as an ever present part of my social world. it also the place where i could articulate my independence. growing up in chicago at mcdonald's mcdonnell has two distinct places. one in its underwriting of so much of the black cultural life of chicago. which is how i started thinking about this book if you think about some of the activities that are happening in the museum was emerging in my own participation and know your heritage. all of these things are

underwritten by black mcdonald's operators. in addition, growing up in the 80s and early 90s a lot of first corporate job opportunities for students of color, mcdonald's was up with abbott labs, xerox, those corporations and providing that entry point for a lot of black college students. so in many ways being in chicago, mcdonald's meets a little bit of a different thing than other cities. we know that mcdonald's was launched by ray croc and then the franchise started. it really is the story of the franchise industry. and of capitalism. so how did that work for mcdonald's? >> mcdonald's grows out of southern california. one of the things i talk c about in the book is that when we

think about how people talk about mcdonald's lake claimant of his incredible innovation, which it is, getting so many people through so quickly is it really big deal for the food industry in the 1940s and 50s. but for my purposes i like to think about in terms of what does it say about america's racial history? what does it say about businesses grow from the highway system which is a source of so much terror and anxiety for black travelers? when we think about the suburbanization of fast food andd communities that all sorts of means of excluding african-americans. so we get to the moment or franchising becomes a growth opportunity for business it is really exciting because it is a moment in which you do not have to have a lot of experience or have had to own a family business to make it big. and this is so american. you can own something like you

own your house but really bank of america owns my house. you can be really successful without a formal education which is i think is one of the promises of the american industry. people just were in love with the idea franchising because someone has done all of the hard work. but the star is you have to assume all of the liability and you have to do an incredible amount of work to make it work. so thinking about chicago, can you talk about the first black franchise owner? >> mcdonald's was founded in 46. the original mcdonald's is from the 40s. it moves to chicago and 55. >> ray croc is incredibly ambitious. he says we can have a

mcdonald's in every bedroom community. but african-americans don't really get an entry point into franchising until 68. it is 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 is very easy to not know or miss understand that king in this moment was not a good guy in history. so after his assassination, it is a work over the past three decades that martin luther king is a hero. but in 1968 after the uprisings in reaction to his death, after all this consternation about the direction of the civil rights movement there is an incredible encouragement for black owned business under the umbrella black capitalism. the first african-american to franchise a mcdonald's, he is kind of in that moment where there is a federal pressure

open a business opportunities for african americans and mcdonald's gets ahead of's it knowing there will be a number of white franchise owners who do not want to do business in black communities anymore. they are incredibly chilled of the events after king's assassination and mcdonnell starts to create black franchise owners to serve predominately black communities. what they discover very soon after its very profitable for number of reasons. >> very profitable. for some of them. >> it's a very good point you make. with they soon discover his black stores at the time. black stores yield very good profits is not a lot of competing businesses. market research shows grote to mcdonald's more often than their white counterparts.te

but the franchise owner does not see all of the profits. donald intervenes black franchise owners can keep their stores and some people do loser stores in the early years by 75, 76 this is something that can work a. in black communities you not nonly take advantage of the changing landscape of intercity i business but you have a really loyal customer base because people feel they are patronizing a black owned business. this is incredibly important for politics at the time. >> there's a trade-off do we want mcdonald's or a community center? can you explain how that was all interwoven together with the power structure? >> one of the things that

happened as mcdonald's is more present in chicago, cleveland and los angeles, philadelphia, portland, oregon's community groups are trying to decide if they like mcdonald's or not and i think this is something i really wanted to talk about in the book. has anyone in this audience never been to a mcdonald's or doesn't know what it is onlymc twice this is happened. two people in the dozens of events i've had around this book said they've never eaten at mcdonald's and they were raised by vegan nutritionists. i don't know what it is. everyone knew what it was. there is a period of time this is not a fixture in every community. as mcdonald's is growing in terms of its presence in black communities are starting to question whether they will contribute to the health and wellness of the people around

it. people are saying if mcdonald's is going to be here, it has to be black franchise. e,if mcdonald's is going to be here, they have to contribute to the free breakfast program run by the black panther party for self-defense for it if mcdonald's is going to be of the one to payrt for a park. it's a surly moment before corporate social responsibility had its playbook. mcdonald's is trying to decide if they should do these things or not. some of these actions are so mind blowing from the perspective of 2021 is telling it not to sound racist or say something. and 78 -- 70 and even up to the 1980s everything is still on the table. i think that is t the part i find mostt fascinating. how do we set the standard and template for how corporations interact with communities?

>> how do you think the books in a way the government supports these sort of expansion ofn mcdonald's. with highways and how they can find it easy and how is they been complicit? >> one of the things received during this time. and it felt very strange in 2020 to hear some of the rhetoric being recycled. one of the reasons why there's sore much unrest in the 1960s is not because people want more businesses necessarily. they want the fundamental things you need for good quality of life. fair equal housing, access to

healthcare good schools your children, jobs that pay more than starvation wages. the issues are very clear and it seems that the federal government says were not going to deliver on the promises of the civil rights were in poverty but a people have their own businesses maybe they will be appeased by this. this is my most cynical grumpy sell for. [laughter] g there's something about that i find is so appalling but i understand white so seductive in 1968. there has been a large-scale failure by that the federal government to look to the promises of the legislative and >> people are saying we are not going toe be protected maybe we have a business maybe we become self-sustaining. but small businesses particularly very few businesses have the power and we have yet to have one, to undo civil rights abuses.

no company can innovate respecting someone's right to vote or ending police brutality. we know people are thinking maybe it is true. butt in 2020 we have no excuse forro thinking the appropriate response for george floyd is to buy it from black businesses. none of b it makes sense. this is what we are constantly presented as a constant solution to the problem. >> it is a solution that continues to this day. >> it so perfectly express on the cover of your book on real people can quite see it isn't paperback. can you talk about the cover of your book because it captures a moment that is a relief too. >> thank you i love this picture so much. it is a picture of a gentleman who's giving the oath of

voting to a woman in the parking lot of a mcdonald's. this picture is from the neighborhood of portland. in thehe process i was able to write about black history in the pacific northwest. she is getting her right to vote at a mcdonald's hence the title franchise you see what my editor did their shake him up at the title i was not that creative. the point is, what does it mean for mcdonald's to be the space in which black rights are being pursued and realized? this is so depressing. i think it is a cautionary tale to all of us this is aware this needs to happen. and i think that what i am most concerned with is saying that we actually do have the tools to address racial

injustice if we keep on suggesting market-baseddin solutions or market activity is going to do this for going to continue to see the cycles of history. >> i want to quickly ask it's so expansive. we talk about the company? >> morel communications from chicago so important for this office for this moment in terms of the's marketplace a culmination of many ways of many years of racial unrest. i think the death of king adds a level to where the country is and other political issues. and so corporations are feeling indicted and thinking

how are we going to reach out? how were going to be more inclusive? they do start investing in black advertising in black creative marketing and black market research companies morel communications takesak mcdonald's on and creates a series of ads that are supposed to speak to the black consumer. there is this anecdote about how they tried to sell african-american consumers on you deserve a break today and it does not work because what break it's 1968 in america, look around. all of this is to say this is something i came to appreciate during the research of this rebook. there are not a lot of african-americans on television during this time. it is a very big deal. even when i was a kid growing up in the 80s it was a really big deal to see these commercialsmm.

to see not only black actors and actresses and singers, but to see black creative talent have a place to t start. producing commercials, being the backup singers, being a dancer in the commercial, this was the platform before the internet. if you spend as much time onde youtube's idea watching old mcdonald's commercials there are some really big stars who get started in thesese commercials. and so i wanted to make sure this book although there's a lot of policy history and a lot of civil rights history acknowledgeses that creative at work that's able to shift some of the representation into the se80s and 90s. >> that had such power. can you talk a little about archival work? finding that photo fork? instance. this is not a corporate history of mcdonald's. they did not open up their

archives. >> no they didn't they did not. i thought that's a blessing that forces you to go around. and find really interesting stuff. talk about that process what are your great finds where did you go? >> i went everywhere. i cannot believe i did this i really can't. when i think about the amount of times i got on and airplane and stayed f for days at a library to get three pieces of paper this is a life of a historian. i told my students when you're on twitter and something has gone viral and there's a joke and you spend maybe 40 minutes trying to find its origins you feel really proud of yourself, that is my job. that's of my life is like it. mcdonald's have its own archives it's not open and it is a i corporation, how do i tell a story about mcdonald's? this is really about shifting

thedo lens. when it tells her about black american 68 mcdonald's is everywhere. when i look at the papers of people mcdonald's is everywhere. when i look at the archives of b the southern christian leadership naacp mcdonald's is everywhere, right? i think we often think about certain relationships of power, people would say was there an archive of all of the black franchise owners of the early class? and i said no. but if i think critically the place is a donated money to, the community groups that interacted with them, i could have written ten books about mcdonald's and black america. i think it's a cautionary tale of who we center and who we consider important makers of history. this is why i am so excited this is the worst book i've ever read i'm going to go back to the same archives i'm going

to write a better version of this because these things are possible but it is political. there has to be programs in which you can study african-american history they have to be faculty that advise you to do that. this is not magic it is about changing who and what we think about in the places that trained scholars to do that kind ofd work. >> it is always interesting to me how you are a journalist for a while, and that is how i met you. i was a summer intern. >> in your desk was catty corner from mine. [laughter] one prize in history is it american civilization which i actually think it is more expansive way to look at

history. it makes me think maybe that is one of the reasons you are so smart about archives. >> you know being on an interdisciplinary piece really pushy to think about the places knowledges can be produced. is not just the papers that are put in a newspaper archive or a collection in the historical society is something you see on youtuber television it's a conversations people have you have access too. one of the things i want to say being back home and being reflective about this trajectory, a lot of what is possible inside the book and in my career was because i grew up in a moment in which they were opportunity programs. this period of time, and generation from 68 but i benefited from the minority

scholarship programs, this idea that maybe we should try to change things a little bit. i think the biggest difference between me andst my students as they are living in a world with fewer of those routes to opportunity. m this is what i find most irritating about the cycles of history that in some ways i can chart the program some were federally funded i can chart the programs that got me too this point. and when i think about the number of resources my students might have with technology those same programs in same possibilities aren't there. i think this is something we have to be so careful about in suggesting there is ever a moment when the work is done. we are always dealing with the unfinished business and the question is how do we return to a place over still want to expand opportunity so aggressively?

>> in certain ways you grapple with this, because in many ways your book is quite an indictment of capitalism capitalism cannot be socially responsible i think that is how i read your book. >> you read it correctly. but i want to do it in a way that's sensitive and not so arrogant to suggest i am so much smarter than the entire mechanism of capitalism that makes me want things or it makes me excited when the new iphone comes out. i don't think that is the entire point. it is to say if we are to be serious about the inequalities that are born out of racism then we cannot constrain choices to the point a new mcdonald's becomes the presence in the lives of people and thenn have an expectation people will be

well fed, healthy and have time for their families and have living wages and access to healthcare. these things are not compatible but when it comes to securing black rates, this is the place we turn too. this idea the marketplace can put something together to quell the real deep inequalities people are constantly reacting to and having to make choices from. >> it seems people are eager to condemn the fatty foods of mcdonald's and all of the bad foods and the dangers. but less eager to contend with implications of the business itself. >> absolutely it is so easy i think this is a long practice

especially throughout the 20th century we have ideas of diets and good food and bad food. i want people to live healthy lives but i never want us to suggest what a person is consuming is more important than the conditions that create the set oft choices. and i think for health practitioners for public policy people there is a default position that african-american choices should be the first place to go as if all of those choices are equally constructed among icall people. >> so what are the blocks to a new kind of system emerging with the vegan food there is a vegan festival going on right

now. people have always kind of embraced i don't want the impossible barker to determine whether everyone has health care. mcdonald's can make all the burgerss they want they can be fine. but, i want. them to operate in eight civil and social contexts where the workers don't make povertyrs wages. let's talk about the franchise let's talk about the disenfranchise and the people who work there which are in your book. when i looked at your foot knows those weren't really or carnivalal lines. >> there is this a moment where people are thinking okay, fast food jobs are first

jobs they are an entry point into the marketplace and then people will have the other tools necessary for social mobility but we will put no money into those tools. will not create any regulatory structure on the quality of those jobs and then the nation is in financial crisis there will not be an expansion of benefits for people in these jobs. and then people are wondering why can to advance them from these jobs? when mcdonald's really starts to get into black communities there are two things i think are reallyom interesting. one is a lot of the black franchisee overs are praise or bring black women into working at mcdonald's. the early mcdonald's brothers fired all the young women who worked at their restaurants because i said they flirted and because sexism is evergreen. sure yet young black women working at mcdonald's some

being able to become managers in releasing this as a great opportunity. mcdonald's sells itself to black consumers by suggesting that the person working the counter would one day become a franchise owner in the stream if you just stay in long enough to know how much capitol you need to have two franchise mcdonald's? mark zuckerberg said his dad told him you could either have a mcdonald's franchise or i can send you to harvard. and it was not a great story? just to wrap our heads around it the myth of the possibility of the franchise system is so, so powerful. all of this is to say the economy shifted rapidly so that these jobs were not possible in terms of creating stable working families. the fight for 15 has effectively raise that consciousness among a lot of

people but still o the $15 an hour wage is not enough. i used to live in oklahoma city i taught at the t university of oklahoma our member companies would come in people would say these are great jobs and we don't have to pay a lot because oklahoma cityok is not expensive as if this is the kind of barometer for economicme growth. this is how the fast food practices really mushroomed. low wages, inconsistent scheduling, sexual harassment no sick leave workers are expendable. this is the moment we are contending with. >> am short on time are there any questions please come up to the microphone if you have a question. i have one last question are going to retain my right for the last question. hi.

>> actions going over in my mind what question to ask. >> hi daniel how are you? yes i am glad you get to the last one i was going to come to that i grew up in the south mcdonald's is my first job, my brother's first job but when i moved to los angeles it's like i am supporting a family with a job for mcdonald's. thee fight for 15 would have been a great thing to have done in 2011. i am wondering if you have seen any connection between that mutation of what mcdonald's was in the civil rights movement in the basic strategy of corporate america to push down everything that happened with the civil rights

movement which was in concert by the u.s. government. i don't want to say synergy is a complement right there. >> talking about archives that really blew my mind i was looking at mcdonald's in the 60s, i found a number of instances in which students like the naacp were involved in protest against segregation at mcdonald's, why is that not within the framework of our history segregation? we have seen all of those iconic images they are very much codified before there was segregation and then there wasn't an these are the places in which it happened. pine bluff arkansas movement is 62 -- 63, people are beaten by the police and trying to do

a protest of a segregated mcdonald's. mcdonald's was part of the onorth carolina sit ins in durham and memphis, all of these places people are acting against mcdonald's. it is not within the frame. i wonder because they hadon crafted themselves onto the narrative of after king's death we did the socially responsible thing by recruiting black franchise owners. they worked out off this history and kept on doing these things. they were very early supporters i talk in the book about martin luther king jr. and i think that rights them out of that. and so will there's a lot of criticism of mcdonald's practices through its labor practices, there's a lot of stuff about the environment in the 80s and 90s. their relationship to the era of segregation has disappeared and i find that so strange.

it is a complete whitewashing of history. it is terrible. any other questions? hi x hello. >> my question is you mention how these creature comforts with universal healthcare are necessary sit in indictments i'm sorry, why don't we see a lot of small business owners really pushing for things like universalho healthcare and things of that nature? these franchise owners for someone who's open to business and whatnot, healthcare is the hardest thing to try to purchase to understand and work with i never understood why this really big push in terms of that.

why is that something? >> that is such an excellent point. one of the two issues that come up as a franchise owners absorb a lot of the risk of the business. and so they are very much beholden to the corporate structure they run their franchise under parade this has become a chronic issue with the national relations board in determining who do you work for? if you work for mcdonald's to work for mcdonald's corporate or the franchise owner? they have come back and forth on this issue and their challenges about sexual harassment, i wage theft and taking care of workers. i think the narrative of the small business of america is been regulation business your employees are people to be distrustful of an invested and all at the same time. and so we could create an incredible movement of small business owners that say if we really are every politician

left and righte makes this claim. these are the things we demand from the public in order to have our small businesses and this is why i always say danger, danger we talk about black owned business the majority of black-owned businesses do not employ anyone, right? the majority black businesses will never have the ability to rebuild the southside of chicago or minneapolis they just do not have that capacity. but, if they have the floor perhaps they can say if you really want black economic empowerment then this requires universal healthcare, free college, free childcare. those things alone could transform the possibility of small businesses that can employ one or two people. that can maybe expand. i think once we suggests the public good undermines in business, then we lose that possibility. >> ino know we have to go and

have one quick question. people should rush out and buy this book. if we could give you a taste of it. so you have a five month old baby at home. >> i do. >> do you think you will be able to go to mcdonald's? when you gonna want to do there? >> here's the thing this is what i have learned in my many months of parenting. i cannot determine what my child eats after a certain point because i want him to be in the thomas person in the world. but this is what i do know. i know at the very least i will try my hardest to raise a very sensitive child who imagined his choices will make ae difference. whether it's what he eats her how o he treats others and a lot of real talk about mcdonald's. i think they'll also be a lot of real talk that every choice we have is complicated. and regardless ofd the choices he makes he still s my baby boy

love so much. the last thing i will say is this has been an incredible year i adopted a child, i won the pulitzer prize in that order. i just want to say this is not about me necessarily a woman in her 40s to be recognized with the pulitzer prize. this is the point. someone who is on every scholarship imaginable in every kind of program was able to do this, i feel like is really meaningful and it does not necessarily mean the work is over. >> so inspiring. you have done so much good work. [applause] congratulations thank you. ♪ ♪ recorded conversations while in office. many of those conversations on c-span's new podcast.

presidential recordings by quick season one focuses on the presidency of lyndon johnson you'll hear about the 1964 civil rights act, the 1964 presidential campaign the march on selma and the war on vietnam part not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson secretaries knew because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. in fact they were the ones who made sure the conversations were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and there's pretty also your blunt talk. >> i want to report the number of people the day he died the number i promise i'll go anywhere on the mobile app ♪

♪ sunday on q&a "washington post" syndicated finance columnist on her book what to do with your money when crisis hits. >> it is not a matter of if there's going to be another economic crisis but when. and so we want to set you up actually for the next crisis it's not all about covid. but what recession is going to come down the road? it may be long, it may be short but life is going to happen and i need you to prepare now. i do a lot of financial seminars in my community. it is so hard to get people to save up when they are doing well. because they are doing well up or they don't think tomorrow is going to have an issue.

need to save into that like yeah i'm to get to it, going to get to it. when a crisis hit they aren't ready to do it. but that is too late. the time to do that is when you have the resources, when you have the ability to cut. it's easy to cut when you can't pay for anything or things are shut down. and so i wanted to say, let's prepare let's be like the fireman or the fire woman who is ready for the next fire per they hope it won't happen but they are going to be prepared for that prick works "washington post" syndicated finance columnist michelle on her book what to do with your money when crisis hits. sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span q&a you can also send a q&a and all of our podcast on her new seat span now app. >> weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday documents the

story and on sundays book tv brings you nonfiction books and authors print funding for cspan2 comes from these television companies and more including carter communications. >> charter is invested billions building infrastructure upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us for. >> charter communications along with these television companies support cspan2 as a publicu service. >> hello my name is nathan buttery. on behalf i would like to welcome you to the festival of books here in nashville, tennessee. whether watching is online or joining us later on c-span with got a great session for you today and we are glad you're with us. before we start i like to thank a few of the festival key sponsors for the ongoing support.