John Hope Bryant

Jeremiah Ojo Speaks on Becoming an Operation HOPE Intern

 

John Hope Bryant Speaks to Parents, Youth About MAKING SMART COOL, Stay in School

 

I recorded this important video message after visiting a Georgia school, and talking to youth (of all races) about the "dumbing down of America," and how it is their mission to MAKE SMART COOL again.  Check it out, and pass it on!  The 5MK movement is in full-effect.

 

John Hope Bryant is a thought leader, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Companies, Inc. Magazine/CEO READ bestselling business author of LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass) the only African-American bestselling business author in America, and is chairman of the Subcommittee for the Under-Served and Community Empowerment for the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, for President Barack Obama.  Mr. Bryant is the co-founder of the Gallup-HOPE Index, the only national research poll on youth financial dignity and youth economic energy in the U.S. He is also a co-founder of Global Dignity with HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Professor Pekka Himanen of Finland. Global Dignity is affiliated with the Forum of Young Global Leaders and the World Economic Forum. 

First HOPE Fellow Christopher Huff Tells His Story

 

Martin Luther King, Sr. "Silver Rights" Quote of the Day

On the tomb of Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., the message is: “I LOVE EVERYONE. STILL IN BUSINESS. JUST MOVED UPSTAIRS.

 

Black Facts in History: Stanley Robertson

 Stanley Robertson was the first black president for NBC and any major network in the country. Robertson, who was also a former associate editor for Ebony magazine, passed away Nov. 16th in his Bel-Air, California home. He was called Hollywood’s only black production executive by the L.A. Times in the 1980s.

Robertson was born in Los Angeles in November 1925. He was born partially blind. He studied at the California School for the Blind before taking up journalism at L.A. City College. By the time he was 20 years old, Robertson had undergone 14 eye surgeries and was never cleared to drive. Despite his handicap, Robertson earned a degree from USC and worked as managing editor for the black-owned Los Angeles Sentinel. Hoping to learn telecommunications, he worked as a page for NBC.

Black Facts in History: Benjamin Banneker

 

Benjamin Banneker was born in 1731 just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a slave. His grandfather had been a member of a royal family in Africa and was wise in agricultural endeavors.His father, Robert, was an African slave who purchased his freedom and his mother, Mary, was the daughter of a freed African slave and an English woman. As a young man, he was allowed to enroll in a school run by Quakers and excelled in his studies, particularly in mathematics. Soon, he had progressed beyond the capabilities of his teacher and would often make up his own math problems in order to solve them.

One day his family was introduced to a man named Josef Levi who owned a watch. Young Benjamin was so fascinated by the object that Mr. Levi gave it to him to keep, explaining how it worked. Over the course of the next few days, Benjamin repeatedly took the watch apart and then put it back together. After borrowing a book on geometry and another on Isaac Newton's Principia (laws of motion) he made plans to build a larger version of the watch, mimicking a picture he had seen of a clock. After two years of designing the clock and carving each piece by hand, including the gears, Banneker had successfully created the first clock ever built in the United States. For the next thirty years, the clock kept perfect time.

In 1776, the Third Continental Congress met and submitted the Declaration of Independence from England. Soon thereafter, the Revolutionary War broke out and Banneker set out to grow crops of wheat in order to help feed American troops. His knowledge of soil gained from his grandfather allowed him to raise crops in areas which had previously stood barren for years.

From the HOPE Archives: John Hope Bryant and Ambassador Andrew Young at B.E.S.T Academy

 

The Founding Donors for new Operation HOPE Business-In-A-Box Program for America's Youth

Introducing HOPE Business-In-A-Box, and the first founding $50.00 donors to the program for youth entrepreneurship development -- Mr. and Mrs. Spence and Jean Wiles.

Jean and Spence presented this $50.00 check to me on my birthday, establishing themselves as the first donors to this amazing new initiative to inspire a generation of entrepreneurs, small business owners and "self-employment projects."  A special thank you as well goes out to Claude and Juanita Bryan, who also made a commitment on the same evening to sponsor another HOPE Business-In-A-Box.

HOPE Business-In-A-Box is a signature initiative of and for our new HOPE Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, all launched during my birthday week.  Here is how it works....

The Mother of Financial Literacy and Financial Dignity

This is literally my mother, Ms. Juanita Smith, but I am not simply being sentimental here.  She IS the mother of financial literacy, leading to financial dignity, that I know in my life. 

When we were growing up my mother divorced my dad, essentially over money and how decisions were impacting the children.  My dad is a good man and is the reason I am an entrepreneur today, but mom was the financial model -- and she was not playing!  I tell her story in more fullness in my bestselling business book LOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based Leadership (Jossey-Bass).

My mother believed in investing her time and her money.  She accepted a job, far below her know-how and skills, as the janitor in my elementary school, just so that she could watch over me.  Before that, she started a nursery business, so that she had a (funded) excuse to spend time with me early in my formative years.  What a women.

Happening Tomorrow in Atlanta