This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Our show is all about recognizing the fascinating stories behind mundane things,

and I can think of nothing more mundane than seeing

McDonald's on nearly every corner. For us today because fast food is so

readily available we often market as something that is unspecial.

That's Marsa Chatelain. She's the author of a book franchise, The Golden Arches in Black America.

But for African Americans, if you consider in the 1970s who have only been federally protected in a public accommodation like a restaurant for maybe five, ten years, going to McDonald's is actually a really big deal.

So when I started reading Dr. Chatelan's book, I think I was expecting kind of a

takedown of McDonald's, kind of like Fast Food Nation, just knives out, talking about all the ways

that fast food companies abuse workers and animals and the planet.

But this book is really complicated.

It looks at the quote, somewhat bizarre but incredibly powerful marriage

between a fast food behemoth and the fight for civil rights. I remember when I was on

my book tour I met a woman who said she remembers going to McDonald's for the first time and getting ice cream because she had grown up in the Jim Crow South and they never went to an ice cream parlor because there was a colored only and whites only counter and her grandmother wouldn't let her go.

And so they would make ice cream at home and she remembers going to get ice cream.

And I think that for people who were so separated from those experiences and

from the pleasure of going out and eating and enjoying themselves, having McDonald's as this accessible place and

having advertisement that shows that you are welcome was a really really big

deal and it still sticks with a lot of people of that generation.

My discussion with Marsha Chatelan starts in 1968

after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

McDonald's joins the legions of businesses that are trying to find a way to

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