John Hope Bryant, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, will join the Global Economic Symposium 2013.
He will speak in the Opening Plenary on "Redefining Success: Why?" and in the Session on "Innovation, Dynamism and Entrepreneurship."
The GES 2013 takes place from October 1st to 2nd, 2013, in Kiel, Germany. Learn more about the Global Economic Symposium here.
Marc Morial, President and of the CEO National Urban League, outlines his agenda for and around 2013 State of Black America Report.
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John Hope Bryant, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, serves as contributing author to the State of Black America 2013 report, focused on "Financial Dignity In An Economic Age."
WASHINGTON, April 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --The National Urban League's (www.nul.org) State of Black America report released today concludes that despite social and economic gains, the African-American equality gap with whites has changed little since 1963—the year of the Great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the height of the civil rights movement.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Great March, this year's State of Black America—Redeem the Dream: Jobs Rebuild America includes a 50-year retrospective analysis conducted through the lens of The Equality Index®. The report shows that while the African-American condition has improved, including achievements in educational attainment and employment, this progress has occurred largely within the Black community. Double-digit gains in education, employment and wealth contrast sharply with the single-digit gains made in those same areas compared to whites.
Report more from the National Urban League on the 2013 Report release here.
See the complete report here.
John Hope Bryant is an empowerment leader, the 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.
Sure, South Africa has problems and many challenges, but her true hope lies within these young people. And on this day, today, they showed me the best that they had and I was impressed. Truth be told, young people in the states could learn a thing or two about being hopeful for one's future in the face of adversity, and no matter what one's circumstances, doing something about it.
This is the inspiring story of so many that I met today. Many, who looked me in the eyes and with all sincerity made clear their commitment to rise to their own level of human potential. For South Africa, and for our world over.
I am honored to be spending the week in South Africa this week, focused on our silver rights empowerment work at Operation HOPE, South Africa, being done in more than six provinces in the country.
While here I will be encouraging a spirit of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and what I call individual job creation (self-employment projects) amongst the generation of young people coming up today in the country.
These young people have benefited from the incredible and life-changing civil rights justice work done by the likes of former President Nelson Mandela, and my friend Archbishop-Emeritus Desmond Tutu, but all too often these same young people are not seeing that history and tradition translate into what I would call silver rights empowerment opportunities for all, today. And that means they are then less interested in school, less interested in their families, less interested in "doing right," and less hope for themselves. And the most dangerous person in the world, is the person with no hope.
Our financial literacy work started here 6-years ago has been helpful, and I want to publicly thank the likes of Angela Motshekga, Sean Cleary, Ambassador Andrew Young and former mayor Herman Bailey, all who encouraged me early on to start the office here. That said, it is not enough.
Continue reading "John Hope Bryant and Operation HOPE Team Visits South Africa This Week" »
This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Birmingham Movement of 1963. Much is known about Dr. King's now famous Letter, but it is generally less known that the Birmingham Movement was rooted in economic justice and jobs.
And so, it was fitting that this week the organization I founded, Operation HOPE, marked the occasion by hosting a special HOPE Forum at our new HOPE Financial Dignity Center at Ebenezer in Atlanta, featuring U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry. Comptroller Curry regulates national banks with total assets of more than $12 trillion.
An authentic, thoughtful and caring leader with a direct impact on more than $12 trillion in banking assets, is precisely the sort of transformational leader we need to see more of in inner-city, rural and under-served communities in America. For me, it is all part of a growing movement and body of work, from civil rights justice, to civil rights empowerment for all.
But the visit to Atlanta and the HOPE Center Ebenezer, located within the larger Martin Luther King, Sr. Community Resource Complex, across from the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, was not a celebration of the vast economic progress that has been made since Dr. King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail. There has been progress, no doubt. Quite a bit in fact, but grossly uneven in its impact; even amongst African-Americans. A room full of Black prosperity is to be celebrated, but it not absent the reality of Black poverty and the unbanked which could be found less than 2 blocks away.
Frankly, much of what Dr. King attempted to deal with and address through his Birmingham Movement work, could very well be applied to the economic conditions today in both Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia.
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013, not only is the date for the HOPE Forum discussion on the future of silver rights empowerment for all, at Dr. King and Daddy King's historic church, and the HOPE Financial Dignity Center Ebenezer now attached to it, it is also the very important 50th anniversary of Dr. King's famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
It is therefore very appropriate that one key Operation HOPE board member in the Southeast, Reverend Dr. Bernice A. King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., heads back to Birmingham, Alabama on this important day, in honor of her father's work and legacy. We encourage all men and women of good will to join her there in Birmingham, Alabama.
And a friend of that movement, Operation HOPE, also stays behind in Dr. King's homebase of Atlanta, Georgia, hosting the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry (regulating more than $12 trillion in banking assets across the nation), in a continuing discussion around silver rights empowermernt for all, and how we advance entrepreneurship, ownership, opportunity and capital flow into the very low-wealth communities that Dr. King and his aide Andrew Young (now Ambassador Andrew Young), were so very concerned about.
Support one anniversary event or the other, but in no case, should we decide to do nothing.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail was for me, arguably the best and important of Dr. King's writings. Possibly even more powerful than his better known I Have A Dream speech in Washington, D.C. That said, the work continues. The work to empower and uplift the least of these God's children, even continues on the 50th anniversary of this great work, and Dr. King's great sacrifice.
Let's go.
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. Mr. Bryant is a thought leader represented by the Bright Sight Group for public speaking. Mr. Bryant serves on the board of directors of Ares Commercial Real Estate Corporation (NYSE: ACRE), a specialty finance company that is managed by an affiliate of Ares Management LLC, a global alternative asset manager with approximately $59 billion in committed capital under management as of December 31, 2012.
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