Ted Mack and Clint Lanier may be generations apart in age and don’t share a similar background, but the New Mexico State University professor’s book about the president of America’s first Black-owned brewery tells the story of a man whose courage and determination are inspiring other Black-owned breweries.


 
Lanier heard about the story several years ago and found it not only uplifting, but also motivating. He felt the contributions of the Black community to the history of beer in America had long been missing and needed to be told.



“Ted Mack and America’s First Black Owned Brewery: The Rise and Fall of Peoples Beer,” written by Lanier, attempts to reclaim at least part of that history. Published by McFarland & Company, the book is available at  mcfarlandbooks.com .


There are about 12,000 breweries in the U.S. Only about 90 are owned by people of color.



“The story of Ted Mack and ‘Peoples Beer’ is really a story about civil rights,” says Lanier, an assistant professor of English at New Mexico State University. “Mack once famously said that white people will give welfare to Black people, but they wouldn’t give them industry. So, he decided to get the industry started for himself, and in the process show the Black community how to lift themselves up.”



Mack was a little-known Milwaukee civil rights leader who, at the height of the civil rights movement, did what few thought possible: He put together a coalition of Black business owners and bought the Peoples Brewing Company in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.



“When I started researching, the more I learned about him, the more amazed I was,” Lanier said. “He started life as a sharecropper, he was a scholarship football player at Ohio State, he was a Korean War veteran and a civil rights activist. He organized buses to Washington, D.C. and school boycotts. The list goes on. Everyone needs to know his story.”



Lanier reached out to Mack’s family and former business associates in Wisconsin. Those interviews along with public archives provided the foundation for Lanier’s book. What unfolded was an all-too familiar story. The rise and fall of the People’s Brewing Company was widely publicized, almost as a cautionary tale to demoralize other Black entrepreneurs. 


 
“It’s the ultimate fish out of water story,” Lanier said. “But, you know, there's more to it than that. There's embedded bias, bigotry and racism just in the fact that they paid so much attention to it.”


 
Mack faced hurdles few white entrepreneurs faced at the time. For example, to get a loan from the Small Business Administration, Black business owners had to guarantee their loans personally.


 
“They were personally guaranteeing a loan for the SBA, while white clients never had to do that. That led to a congressional investigation of the SBA that Ted Mack was part of in 1973 and 1974.



The ultimate failure of Peoples Beer seemed unstoppable as Mack fought battle after battle to make his mark in the brewing industry.
“From corruption to bigotry, it seemed the fates were against him at every turn,” Lanier said.



Mack blamed several things for the downfall of his brewery. He pointed to the SBA’s practice of providing loans to Black businesses but not the support and technical expertise needed to make new businesses successful. White-owned taverns also refused to sell Peoples Beer and many, including those in the Black community, refused to drink it, which impacted sales.



“Something that really surprised him and disappointed him was that the Black community never really supported him in the ways that he expected during the civil rights era,” Lanier said. “Once the Black community found out that one of their own bought this brewery, he thought that they would support him.”


 
Mack didn’t buy Peoples Beer just to make money, he did it as a part of his commitment to social activism. In that respect, although the black community is historically underrepresented in terms of the history of the beer in America, and the beer industry itself, other Black-owned breweries are following in his Mack’s footsteps.


 
Part of Lanier’s research included reaching out to Black-owned breweries. He recently was invited to have a book signing in honor of Juneteenth at Oak Park Brewing Company in Sacramento, California. The company is picking up where Mack left off, selling Peoples Beer, made with the original recipe.


 
“Kevin Johnson, who was a professional basketball player and the mayor of Sacramento, reached out to me,” Lanier said. “He bought a small brewery in Sacramento called Oak Park Brewing Company. They are inspired by Ted Mack. They realize the importance of his story. The problem is not enough people know about him. If they did, more business people in the Black community might be inspired to take a chance and maybe get into the industry.”


 
When Ted Mack bought a brewery in Wisconsin in 1970, one of the many obstacles was the perception that beer was considered part of white culture. Immigrant families from Germany and Bavaria settled in that area and they brought beer-brewing with them. They did not welcome a Black-owned brewery competing in their business.

 
“Ted Mack would say ‘if the Black man wants to raise himself up, he has to get into the corporate structure of America.’ So those two thoughts led him to taking the steps he did,” Lanier said. “He wanted to demonstrate that Black men could enter the corporate structure and participate in industry at that level. People like Ted Mack lit a torch and led the way. Whether or not he was successful, he was able to demonstrate what could be done.”
 
The full article can be seen at  
https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-professor-recounts-life-of-country-s-first-black-brewery-president/s/d8508737-2222-4e43-a2b1-6ea2bec596d7