Black McDonald’s operators detail history of alleged racial discrimination in lawsuit

For years Robert Bonner was committed to working under McDonald s iconic Golden Arches But by the time the native Floridian had severed ties with the franchise founded in Des Plaines by Ray Kroc in he burned everything that was related to the restaurant chain awards shirts valuable collectibles in his backyard Bonner was the owner-operator of six McDonald s stores in Illinois and the St Louis region But he left the chain after enduring numerous alleged racist actions from McDonald s that he says impeded his opportunity for entrepreneurial advancement and generational wealth Those Golden Arches you have the belief that at particular point this is going to go the way you were promised it would go he mentioned The day you get the keys it becomes an us and them mentality corporate versus the people who run the store Bonner is among dozens of Black McDonald s store owners around the nation demanding a jury trial in a racial discrimination and breach of contract lawsuit against McDonald s Corp and McDonald s USA LLC This June Bonner was among more than plaintiffs who called for a boycott of the franchise The Chicago-based civil rights law firm of Loevy Loevy filed the federal suit in stating Black owner and operators were forced out of the company over internal practices and policies that include among others forcing Black owners into low-profit stores in areas with high crime rates and denying Black franchisees the ability to buy stores in white communities Bonner endured the alleged racist tactics from McDonald s after becoming an owner-operator in with an East St Louis location Despite recognition for his leadership in the local communities where he operated for over two decades including investing nearly million into area programs Bonner severed ties with McDonald s in According to the lawsuit McDonald s thwarted Bonner s attempts to sell his stores at a worthy price and buy new locations on multiple occasions between and One such deal was approximately for a store but when the regional manager spoke to the foreseen buyer he revealed he planned to buy Bonner s store for much less saying I ll be damned if I let a Black operator be much richer than me Bonner noted he had to sell the store for around less than the deal he had lined up Bonner even had plans to purchase McDonald s stores in other states but the same regional manager got in the way of that probable deal and encouraged the seller not to sell to Bonner They didn t want to see people of color pass them we heard that so several times Bonner disclosed McDonald s did change my life but they took so much in so countless years I won t even go into one of the stores now The lawsuit details the history of racial discrimination against Black franchisees from its founding in when McDonald s installed its restaurants only in white neighborhoods and barred Black individuals from becoming franchisees to McDonald s approving Black owner-operators to take over urban stores solely in scenarios where Black franchisees had to partner with a white owner-operator to purchase a location in the s and s From to the number of Black franchisees fell from to while the number of total McDonald s stores went from to Stores owned by Black franchisees earn about two-thirds of the average McDonald s store The suit says equitable measures and initiatives to rectify the racial discrimination in the company were never followed through on increasing the annual cash flow gap between Black and non-Black franchisees Roughly half of Black franchisees were forced out of the McDonald s system by compared with of white owner-operators in the same time frame Then in January McDonald s communicated it was scaling back its commitment to diversity initiatives which prompted the boycott by the People s Union USA A comment from McDonald s Corp denied the assertions in the lawsuit and defended its history with Black franchisees saying plaintiffs accusations are false a deliberate distortion of facts and a desperate publicity stunt by the lawyers that stand to benefit The states were previously dismissed and make no sense given McDonald s record of stake in its franchisees success We look forward to the day these plaintiffs set aside their falsehoods and acknowledge McDonald s steadfast commitment to the success of our Black franchisees and increasing access to opportunity for all Loevy Loevy attorney Quinn Rallins disclosed the greater part of the effort to sue in response to McDonald s practices came about when two former Black vice presidents at McDonald s Vicki Guster-Hines and Domineca Neal blew the whistle That is when nearly clients in total approximately he represents decided enough was enough he stated The late Sherman Claypool invested in McDonald s in and would go on to own five locations in Milwaukee He was one of the founding members of the National Black McDonald s Operators Association to advocate for Black franchisees his work with the association was recognized in a May resolution passed by the Illinois House of Representatives for laying the foundation for African American entrepreneurs in the United States in the modern day Claypool died in October from stress-induced Parkinson s according to his daughter Talyia From downstate Grand Chain Illinois Claypool was a mechanic He owned two organization stations in Wisconsin before he segued to McDonald s ownership His widow Glenda a native of Milwaukee is part of the lawsuit on behalf of her late husband I remember he came home one day he sat outside in the car and he was like I can t do it no more I can t do this anymore recalled Glenda Claypool According to Talyia Claypool before the family sold their properties in she and her sister Mila who had worked with her father in their stores since watched their dad suffer for a decade due to the alleged discrimination McDonald s posed on his business They commented he was sick for that time and given the stress his condition progressively got worse over the last three years he owned the franchise Sherman Claypool had managed to hang on to the business for years The last publicized visit that we had from corporate he had a clinical episode that morning and he never had that that was a routine thing for him but it had gotten so bad at the end that he had to be seen by a medic before he went to work Mila Claypool reported She felt so traumatized by the McDonald s experience that she left fast-food altogether She declared she wants this lawsuit to be taken seriously in order to feel heard seen and to a few extent get the healing started There were forcible price increases and the neighborhoods that we were in were in low-income neighborhoods and it wouldn t be affordable to the public or to our customers Mila Claypool revealed Talyia Claypool remembers McDonald s forcing her family down to one store she mentioned A complete revamp of the computer system in their last store was the one thing the family couldn t come back from Finances had gotten so bad that we were robbing Peter to pay Paul at one point Talyia Claypool declared We own a store and our lights are cut off not because we mismanaged money It s that we can t make any because they are taking more than we could survive on There were chosen good years but there was a lot of bad We felt that they tried to hurt us she commented Sherman Claypool faced a series of defense issues at his stores with employees frequently being robbed According to the lawsuit around a reckless driver drove into Claypool s store which suspended operations for weeks and another matter prevented customers access to the store for about eight months Claypool sought financial assistance from McDonald s for those incidents but was denied When Claypool was offering scholarships to the Black society in Milwaukee from the s to the early s McDonald s allegedly forced them to stop the giving The Claypools explained a white McDonald s field consultant didn t want to go to that side of town anymore for such events because she was scared so they think McDonald s did what they could to stop the scholarship activity despite the hundreds of scholarships Sherman Claypool funded Our experience with McDonald s is what introduced us to hardcore racism not where we lived not the schools we went to she explained If you put us all in a room together we all have similar stories and a lot of us don t even know each other I was crying going through the stories of the other Black owner-operators McDonald s knew what they were doing They figured out a way to get money off Black people put certain Black faces behind these McDonald s and get their money and at the same token we re going to make sure that these people don t get more than us don t get what we have drockett chicagotribune com