Presidents Program
Marcia Chatelain, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University, will be the featured speaker at the 2019 ALCTS President’s Program at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Chatelain's presentation will be on her forthcoming book, "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America."
There are few generators of black wealth in the United States greater than fast food franchising. The days of black-owned funeral homes, insurance companies, and banks anchoring the central business district of the once labeled ‘colored sections’ of cities are long gone. In their places: McDonalds, KFC, Taco Bell, and other fast food joints in the now simply segregated quarters of our cities, suburbs, and exurbs. We think we know the story of what the presence and impact of fast food in communities of color means. Poor people eat too much of it. The jobs it provides pay too little. Children are too enticed by it. But, as the food revolution looks to eradicate trans fats from American diets and enthusiastic, do-gooders plant gardens in inner city schools, few have stopped to ask the most important question: How did we get here? How did fast food outlets spread across the South Side of Chicago, the central core of Los Angeles, and the southeastern quadrant of Washington, D.C.? How did a concept borne in the suburbs become a symbol of urban deficit—nutritional and economic? Marcia Chatelain’s forthcoming book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America tells the story of black capitalists, civil rights leaders, and even radical nationalists who believed that their destiny rested with a set of golden arches. And it tells of an industry that blossomed at the very moment a freedom movement began to wither.
Dr. Chatelain is the author of the 2015 book, “South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration” and the chapter, “The Politics of the Drive-Thru Window: Chicago’s Black McDonald’s Operators and the Demands of Community” in “Building the Black Metropolis: African American Entrepreneurship in Chicago (2017). Dr. Chatelain is a frequent speaker and writer on African American history, race, inclusive teaching, and food justice. Following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, she created the collaborative #FergusonSyllabus, a resource listing resources that could be used to teach students about the shooting and its antecedents, that has been a model for similar teaching projects.
This program is sponsored by OCLC.
ALA Unit/Subunit: ALCTS
Meeting Type: President's Program
Cost: Included with full conference registration.
Open/Closed: Open
Marcia Chatelain
Associate Professor of History and African American studies
Georgetown University