Their "history of tipping" doesn't make a ton of sense. They say it starts with black americans willing to work as waiters for lower wages, since they could expect to be paid with tips. If they took those jobs expecting to be tipped, tipping was already a common practice.
> When the practice was brought to the United States in the 19th century, the American public was deeply uncomfortable with it. Many saw tipping as undemocratic and therefore un-American. A powerful anti-tipping movement erupted, fueled by the argument that employers, not customers, should be paying workers. But American restaurants and railway companies fought particularly hard to keep tipping, because it meant they didn’t have to pay recently freed black slaves who were now employed by those industries. Europe eventually did away with tipping. But in America, pressure from powerful corporate interests resulted in a two-tiered wage system for tipped and non-tipped workers, institutionalizing a highly racialized system of economic exclusion.
[1] https://www.fordfoundation.org/news-and-stories/stories/amer...