“Let's Keep This Kroger Store Open”: Racial Capitalism and the Shifting Food Geographies of Macon, Georgia

In 2018, the closure of the Kroger on Pio Nono Avenue in Macon, Georgia left nearby communities without access to affordable, nutritious food. The store’s abandonment speaks to a longer history of state and corporate disinvestment in Macon’s Black neighborhoods. This thesis explores how grocery store openings, relocations, and closures from 1925 to 2025 reflect patterns of racial capitalism and organized abandonment in Macon. Using archival materials such as city directories, newspaper articles, and local interviews, I trace shifting food geographies across five key years in the city’s history. It is through those archival materials that I am able to center community voices, providing firsthand accounts that speak to the lived experiences of food apartheid on ground. These narratives inform spatial analysis conducted in ArcGIS Pro and QGIS. This work expands how racial capitalism through organized abandonment continues to devalue and disinvest in Black communities in smaller cities like Macon.