Marcia Chatelain. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 2020. 336 pp. ISBN 978-1-63149-394-2 $28.95 (cloth).

Abstract

Carl Stokes lovedhis hometownofCleveland. Born and raised in thisMidwest city, hewon the 1967 mayoral election, becoming the first African American mayor of a major municipality. Formany Black voters, their support for Stokes also supported visions of Black capitalism and “their desires to see themselves reflected in positions of power and authority” in Cleveland (91). Stokes realized that he needed to “assume a probusiness stance” to survive his mayoral term, while he supported the Black electorate that looked towards a brighter future (91). Thus, the new mayor supported Black businesspeople such as Ernest Hilliard, who desired one of the lucrative McDonald’s franchises in East Cleveland’s Black community. These four restaurants owned by threewhite businessmen, “exceeded the national average of profits each year” (94). Many community activists wondered wondered if any of the profits remained in the neighborhood, decided to boycott the four restaurants to compel McDonald’s into extending franchise opportunities to African American investors. Under immense pressure, the three East Side locations closed from a lack of sales and forced the last franchisee to sell to Hilliard, who shortly enjoyed profits exceeding more than 84% over the previous year (94). Unlike some sit-ins and boycotts at which activists fought racial segregation in restaurants and lunch counters, the Cleveland boycotts aimed for ownership, investment, and economic prosperity for a meaningful amount of African Americans in the city (120). In the 2020 Pulitzer Prize–winning book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Marcia Chatelain examines the role of McDonald’s, one of the world’s most successful fastfood brands, and the “hidden history of the intertwined relationship between the struggle for civil rights and the expansion of the fast-food system” (3). Starting with foundersMaurice and Richard McDonald in the 1940s and then moving into the twenty-first century, Chatelain highlights the “contemporary conversation about race and fast food” and how “other fast-food chains followed McDonald’s path as they identified and cultivated a Black consumer market and franchise corps” (11). AsMcDonald’s began to franchise locations across the country, and embedded itself intoAmerican history, the scholarship on this restaurant ignored the "Golden Arches" connection and their relationship to BlackAmerica. In a clear intervention, Chatelain argues that when denied access and citizenship to what Lizabeth Cohen calls the “consumer republic,” African Americans used “the marketplace to make claims for their rights” (12). Therefore, McDonald’s had no other choice but to acknowledge the significance of their black customers and franchisees, after decades of social, political, economic, and cultural actions to hold the corporation accountable. Chatelain’s interventions, the critical analysis on Black