--- title: The First 'Mission-Driven' Companies — Before Whole Foods description: Today, major corporations use social justice as branding. The idea originated from their antithesis: small businesses in the sixties canonical: https://time.com/4876069/head-shops-whole-foods-book/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-27T10:20:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:45:08.605Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The First 'Mission-Driven' Companies og:description: Today, corporations use social justice as branding. The idea came from their antithesis og:url: https://time.com/4876069/head-shops-whole-foods-book/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc579c2648517b3aa/6988d75a97cdff02306b1c48/book-in-brief-the-first-mission-driven-companies.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: book-in-brief-The-first-mission-driven-companies og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The First 'Mission-Driven' Companies twitter:description: Today, corporations use social justice as branding. The idea came from their antithesis twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc579c2648517b3aa/6988d75a97cdff02306b1c48/book-in-brief-the-first-mission-driven-companies.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The First 'Mission-Driven' Companies by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jul 27, 2017 10:20 AM UTC  by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jul 27, 2017 10:20 AM UTC These days, it’s common for major public companies to market themselves using words like sustainability and [mission-driven](http://time.com/4277505/why-more-companies-are-coming-out-of-the-political-closet/). But University of Baltimore history professor Joshua Clark Davis argues this kind of branding derives from big corporations’ antithesis: small businesses, especially those born during the social-justice movements of the 1960s. In his new book, [_From Head Shops to Whole Foods_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231171587/?tag=timecom-20), Davis profiles several of these entrepreneurial ventures, such as the black-owned Drum and Spear Bookstore and the feminist Diana Press, and explains how they pioneered what he calls “activist entrepreneurship” by selling progressive products, using storefronts as political spaces, sharing ownership, limiting growth and de-prioritizing profit. Although many of these businesses have since closed, their language legacy lives on, albeit in ways that would likely make their founders cringe. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4876069/head-shops-whole-foods-book/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4876069/head-shops-whole-foods-book/"},"headline":"The First 'Mission-Driven' Companies","datePublished":"2017-07-27T10:20:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:45:08.605Z","description":"Today, corporations use social justice as branding. The idea came from their antithesis","url":"https://time.com/4876069/head-shops-whole-foods-book/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc579c2648517b3aa/6988d75a97cdff02306b1c48/book-in-brief-the-first-mission-driven-companies.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc579c2648517b3aa/6988d75a97cdff02306b1c48/book-in-brief-the-first-mission-driven-companies.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"book-in-brief-The-first-mission-driven-companies","caption":"book-in-brief-The-first-mission-driven-companies","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4876069/head-shops-whole-foods-book/","name":"The First 'Mission-Driven' Companies"}}]}] ```