Monarch butterflies need Chicago’s help

I was so glad to see your article Friday about monarchs and milkweed. Lots of milkweed grows each year in the rocks along the lake walk between Foster beach and Hollywood. It is routinely cut down, along with the clover that bees and butterflies also love. Before cutting, I always see butterflies on them.

I hope your article spurs those in charge to consider leaving the milkweed and clover for the summer.

Susan Licciardi, Edgewater

Welcome Mellody Hobson

Mellody Hobson’s appointment as chair of World Business Chicago was a surprise to many. After all, those who care about the future of our city protested and sued until she and her husband’s gift of nearly $1 billion to build a museum, create jobs and employ people of color was rejected. However, she’s back at it again, lending her skills and name to champion Chicago.

I truly hope the protectors of parking lots and unused grass along the lakefront — who blocked the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art — don’t figure out a way to scare off any new projects she may suggest.

Kenneth Sawyer, Kenwood

Get on right side of history

Mitch McConnell and Republican lawmakers don’t think African Americans deserve reparations for slavery. Although it’s true no living white person is responsible for slavery, all living white people have benefited from slavery in the same way that all living black people wear the scars of slavery.

What we do know is that America was built on slavery, the separation of African families, and the genocide of decedents of African Americans. We also know that numerous U.S. companies: New York Life, Tiffany and Co., Aetna, Brooks Brothers, Bank of America, Wachovia, JPMorgan Chase and others got rich from America’s slave trade.

Slavery helped to create the white middle class, although African Americans were excluded from benefiting from same government programs that their taxes helped create, denying them the opportunity to create wealth.

It’s clear that the Republican Party’s leadership is totally against reconciliation or atonement of any kind for centuries of atrocities perpetrated on generations of descendants of African Americans — including their own constituents.

The irony is, even after all the racist comments and tweets President Donald Trump has made, Republicans could actually “make America great again” with one unanimous vote that would put them on the right side of history for once.

As the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check — a check that has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity in this nation.”

William Booker, University Park