Clint Lanier: Ted Mack and America's First Black-Owned Brewery

Best Part of the Book

EPISODE SUMMARY

Clint Lanier and Mark Perzel discuss the life and experiences of Ted Mack, focusing on his journey from a sharecropper's son in Alabama to a social worker and civil rights activist in Milwaukee, and eventually to the business world where he pursued his dream of owning a brewery. They highlight Ted's involvement in the civil rights movement, his fight against segregation, and his entrepreneurial struggles, particularly with the challenges he faced as the owner of People's Beer, a minority-owned business, as well as the systemic barriers he encountered, including government corruption and a lack of support from his own community.

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Receive a 25% discount on Clint's book from McFarland's website by using the code BESTPART at checkout: mcfarlandbooks.com/product/ted-mack-and-americas-first-black-owned-brewery

BOOK & DESCRIPTION

Ted Mack and America’s First Black-Owned Brewery: The Rise and Fall of Peoples Beer. McFarland, softcover (2023) mcfarlandbooks.com/product/ted-mack-and-americas-first-black-owned-brewery

Born a sharecropper in rural Alabama in 1930, Theodore A. (Ted) Mack, Sr., fought in the Korean War and then played football at Ohio State while earning a college degree. Brewing and selling beer, he believed, would be just another peak to attain. After all, it couldn’t be more challenging than his experience in organizing buses to the March on Washington or picketing segregated schools in Milwaukee. This is the story of Mack’s purchase of Peoples Brewing Company in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Though he had carefully planned for the historic acquisition, he underestimated the subtle bigotry of Middle America, the corruption of the beer industry, and the failures of the federal government that plagued his ownership. Mack’s ownership of Peoples Brewing is an inspirational story of Black entrepreneurship, innovation and pride at a time when America was at an important racial justice crossroads.

ABOUT CLINT

Clint Lanier is an assistant professor of English at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. His writing about travel, history, food and drink has appeared in the Huffington Post, Eater, and Fodors.

ABOUT MCFARLAND

McFarland, a leading independent publisher of academic and general-interest nonfiction books, is perhaps best known for the serious treatment of popular culture. Founded in 1979, McFarland is recognized among authors and readers as adventurous in range and a reliable source of worthy books that other publishers overlook. They have about 8000 unique works for sale and each year publish about 350 new titles. Meeting high library standards has been a major focus since the company began, and many McFarland books have received awards from the academic-oriented (e.g., Choice Outstanding Academic Title, ALA Outstanding Reference Work) to the mainstream (Hugo, Edgar, Stoker, and Eisner, among others). www.McFarlandBooks.com

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