Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

"Marcia Chatelain contributes her perspective on how eating establishments have served as a site for black political expression and a business opportunity. One of her incredibly smart observations is that early activists for black civil rights used lunch counters as venues for protest; that’s an important part of our food history. Chatelain also pushes back on perceptions, perpetuated by popular food scholars, that when we see a black person who is unhealthy it is simply a consequence of that individual’s choice. Another scholar, Julie Guzman, makes this point forcefully in her book, Weighing In . Chatelain doubles down on that. She points out that the socioeconomic conditions of African Americans and the places where they live limit their food choices. in many ways, they have no choices at all; they end up eating fast food because that’s the only thing that’s available. So she brings attention to food deserts and the reduced autonomy of black consumers. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The story of how black entrepreneurs used the predominance of fast food in their communities as an economic development opportunity is brought to light by this book. Chatelain looks at entrepreneurs who take fast food franchises and retrofit them as employment sources and gathering spots for their communities. She talks about how McDonald’s becomes a place, not just of wealth for some black entrepreneurs but also for black Americans to form communal bounds and create political movements. The field is on a good trajectory. People are beginning to question the privileging of the consumer and the chef. As food becomes more and more transnational, they are starting to explore the consequences for food workers in far-flung places. We are now getting serious about exploring changes in other lands as a consequence of US imperialism and the imposition of an economic structure that supports the richer nations over poor or developing ones. That’s right. I focus on Eli Black, the CEO of a multinational conglomerate known as United Brands, which acquired United Fruit, a company known among historians for their impact on Honduras and all of Latin America. By the time Black took over United Brands in 1970, it wasn’t just growing bananas in Honduras; United Brands produced lettuce in California and beef in Iowa. United Brands also owned Baskin Robbins Ice Cream and the fast-food restaurant, A&W, which was then the second largest chain to McDonald’s in the 1970s. The history of food in the late 20th century involves multinational organizations raising, processing, and selling food in multiple places. These multinationals shape the destiny of food workers domestically and abroad, from California and South Dakota to Central America. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter By looking at the food system from the top down in this book, I am completing my trilogy of food histories. My first book studied food workers. My second looked at the middle rung, the organizers. Eli Black, the subject of my third book, is a really interesting character. He took his own life in 1975, after bribing the President of Honduras to lower export taxes on his bananas. He doesn’t sound like a historical hero, but what has been lost to history is that he bucked the trend of other owners by working with Cesar Chavez and other unions to bring justice to farm workers in California and employees and peasant farmers in Honduras. He tried to manage this multi-national corporation in a socially conscious way before the term was in vogue. He failed but his efforts reveal the hope and challenges of pursuing this approach to business in our own time."