For 25 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 1955, 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 growth and generational wealth.

“Those Golden Arches … you have the belief that at some point this is going to go the way you were promised it would go,” he said. “The day you get the keys, it becomes an us and them mentality, corpor

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