John Hope Bryant’s nonprofit Operation Hope is focused on providing financial literacy to underserved communities. “I think financial literacy is a civil rights issue of this generation,” Bryant said. “You cannot have a country with the largest economy on the planet for the next 30 years without these Closers and everybody else in this room that are closing the economic gap—by trading you up, getting you in the economy, becoming homeowners, small business owners, and entrepreneurs.”
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00:00 Isn't God good?
00:02 Yes, God.
00:04 Let's try that one more time.
00:06 The Bible suggests be hot or be cold.
00:08 If you're lukewarm, I'll spat you out.
00:10 Translation, even God does not like mediocrity.
00:14 Isn't God good?
00:16 Yes, God.
00:18 Before I do anything else, I would like to acknowledge both Time Magazine, thanks to the entire team,
00:23 Sa'di Muhammad, the entire leadership team, but also I want to acknowledge the 18 closers.
00:28 Can each of you please stand up?
00:30 [applause]
00:35 Corey, stand up. Stand up, Corey.
00:37 [applause]
00:46 It'll make sense why I asked that to happen in a second.
00:49 So, two things.
00:53 Ambassador Andrew Young, who was on that balcony with Dr. King in 1968, April, when he was assassinated,
00:59 who is the last living lieutenant to Dr. King today, Atlanta, Georgia.
01:04 Ambassador Young would say the coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.
01:09 I'm going to also say that we're sitting in a moment in history, right now.
01:16 But history does not feel historic when you're sitting in it.
01:19 It just feels like another day.
01:22 But that does not mean that the moment is not, in fact, historic.
01:27 So, let's pause that for a moment.
01:30 Let's go back to the coincidence part.
01:32 You can't make this up.
01:35 March 3rd, 1923, a couple visionaries pulled together 9,000 subscribers, most of them college graduates,
01:49 and created what we call Time Magazine.
01:52 It's your 100, next, Sunday next will be your 101st anniversary.
01:57 Nothing typically extraordinary about that, but hold on for a minute.
02:01 March 3rd, 1865.
02:11 Two months after Abraham Lincoln sent Secretary of War Stanton and General Sherman to Savannah, Georgia,
02:16 to meet with 20 black ministers and ask, "What do you want after slavery?"
02:21 They didn't say, "I want a welfare program or a handout."
02:25 They said, "I want land. I want a due for my self-evident answer."
02:32 That became 40 Acres.
02:36 Field Action 15. Savannah, Georgia, from North Carolina, South Carolina, all down to Florida, along the beach.
02:43 They worked that land so hard that the next month, they said, "My God, they're so industrious, give them a mule."
02:49 You now know that story. 40 Acres and a mule.
02:53 March 3rd, 1865.
02:56 Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Freedmen's Bureau Act,
03:02 which created black universities and colleges, a black hospital, amongst other things,
03:07 to give blacks a reset in the society after slavery.
03:10 And he also created the Freedmen's Bank,
03:13 chartered to teach freed slaves about money.
03:18 Financial literacy, circa 1865.
03:22 And I think financial literacy is a civil rights issue of this generation,
03:27 but I'm getting ahead of myself.
03:29 March 3rd, 1865.
03:31 He chartered this bank, which was across the street from the White House,
03:34 in what was called now, up until recently, the Freedmen's Bank.
03:37 Sorry, called the Treasury Annex Building, which is where we do all our financial espionage work to this day,
03:43 which is, by the way, overseen today by a black man by the name of Wally Adeyemo,
03:48 who's the first black man in the history of the United States to be Deputy Secretary of the United States Treasury Department.
03:53 And he's the one giving Putin hell right now,
03:56 through Treasury Annex, which is now called the Freedmen's Bank Building.
04:01 And I'm honored to say I triggered the, inspired the renaming of that building,
04:06 but that's not even the irony.
04:09 You fast forward 100 years, and here comes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
04:15 March 3rd, 1968, at Ebenezer Church,
04:20 who gave a speech called "Unfulfilled Dreams."
04:24 And that speech was important for several reasons.
04:28 It's not a very well-quoted speech. Not many people know about it.
04:32 It was a month before his assassination.
04:34 But if you do a little research in that speech, he's talking about you.
04:38 Because he talks about King Solomon, and he wants to build a temple and a legacy on the hill,
04:45 but he knows he's not going to be there to see it in its fulfillment.
04:50 So he calls on his son and their believers to finish the work.
04:57 What most don't know is that Ambassador Andrew Young knew that,
05:04 Dr. King knew that his days were numbered.
05:06 March 3rd, 1968.
05:09 That's why he gave that speech, and that's why he went on the next month
05:13 to go to Memphis, Tennessee to meet with sanitation workers on the Poor People's Campaign.
05:17 The last movement, he said, "I'm here to redeem the soul of America
05:20 from the triple evils of war, racism, and poverty."
05:23 And he pivoted to poverty, which was about all people,
05:26 and there are more poor white people in America today and then.
05:29 And he called with the sanitation workers for a new movement.
05:34 And if you might recall, he went to Mason Temple, and he said, in summary,
05:39 "I've seen the mountaintop. I may not get there with you.
05:44 But I've seen the mountaintop, and I want you to get there on my behalf."
05:50 And he collapsed--he's never done this before--he collapsed in the arms of his aides
05:56 after that speech.
05:58 The next day he had a pillow fight at the motel, the Lorraine Motel.
06:02 It was as if he was free.
06:04 He had given up the ghost.
06:06 He had done as much as he could do, and he was assassinated
06:09 when he walked out on the balcony after that pillow fight.
06:14 You are the sons and daughters that he was referring to.
06:20 You are the fulfillment of that unfinished dream.
06:24 And now the second part, sitting in a moment in history.
06:28 Let's assume that after the Civil War was the first reconstruction,
06:33 freedom from the farms--from the fields to the farms,
06:37 or the fields to the factories.
06:39 Let's assume that the second reconstruction was Andrew Young,
06:42 Dr. King, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Dorothy Hite, and the Civil Rights Movement.
06:47 Access to the ballot box, to public facilities, to government offices, to jobs.
06:54 But now let's assume that after George Floyd's murder in 2020,
06:58 that we have a decade of the third reconstruction.
07:02 And it's from the streets to the suites.
07:06 The color's not black or white, or red or blue.
07:11 It's green.
07:14 It's always been green.
07:18 So why is this important?
07:20 Because in 1950, 90% of America was white.
07:26 Let that sink in for a minute.
07:28 Which meant Dr. King was basically asking you to do the moral thing,
07:31 to do the right thing.
07:33 But he didn't have the masses on his side.
07:35 The mass was not on his side.
07:37 I'm with Melody Hobson.
07:38 I like mass because it doesn't have an opinion.
07:43 Today, 40% to 50% of America is black and brown.
07:49 And that's before you add the 25% of poor whites that are now riding at the ballot box.
07:56 Because they don't have a business plan for their life.
07:59 That's before you talk about the fact that 70% of this country is living from paycheck to paycheck,
08:04 70% of the largest economy on the planet is consumer spending.
08:07 Before you talk about the fact that half of those making $100,000 a year are living from paycheck to paycheck,
08:12 before you talk about the fact that a quarter of those making $250,000 a year are living from paycheck to paycheck,
08:18 I've not gotten close to home yet, let me say this.
08:21 If you're living in Manhattan and you make $100,000 a year, it feels like $39,000 a year.
08:27 Can I get an amen?
08:29 See, that wasn't a black amen, a Latino amen, a white amen.
08:32 It was just an amen.
08:39 This moment we're having, this pushback on supposedly diversity and inclusion, is a ridiculous conversation.
08:47 I'm not making a moral statement.
08:49 I'm not making a race -- this is just math.
08:54 There's not enough -- with the largest economy on the planet, with the sole superpower in the world,
09:00 everybody wants to be an American except Americans.
09:05 You'll get that later.
09:08 But check this out.
09:12 There's not enough college-educated, successful white men to drive GDP, gross domestic product, for the next 30 years.
09:23 That's not a racial statement.
09:26 It's never happened in the history of the world.
09:28 Never.
09:30 God has a sense of humor.
09:33 You literally cannot have a country that has the largest economy on the planet for the next 30 years,
09:39 within our lifetime, unless you have these closers and everybody else in this room who is closing,
09:45 closing literally the economic gap by training you up, getting you in the economy,
09:51 becoming homeowners, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and let me --
09:55 you never want to be the old guy in the club.
10:03 So before you all stop me, I'm going to stop myself.
10:09 We're going to have some church in here tonight.
10:12 But I wanted to leave you with this because it's unimpeachable and it's undeniable, it is simply math.
10:20 We need all of us.
10:24 This does not work without all of us.
10:27 The largest economy in the country, the world, us.
10:30 The most diverse country -- the most diverse country in the world, us.
10:34 The two largest places in America, California and New York.
10:36 Two most diverse places in America, California and New York.
10:41 The most diverse place in the south, Atlanta.
10:45 The biggest economy in the south, Atlanta.
10:48 The 10th largest economy in the entire U.S.
10:50 I'm not selling wolf tickets tonight.
10:52 I'm telling you, the most conservative places in the world will tell you the most profitable companies are diverse and inclusive.
11:00 The most profitable regions are diverse and inclusive.
11:03 No one can screw up our business plan.
11:05 We've got to do that.
11:07 America is not a country, she's an idea, and we can make her anything we want.
11:10 [Applause]
11:16 So I leave you with this.
11:18 I came from south central L.A. and I am confident.
11:20 People wrote me off and walked me off the stage, but God don't make dirt.
11:24 And if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plan.
11:28 Today Operation Open is the largest financial literacy coaching organization in America.
11:32 We're going to finish what the Freedman's Bank started, what Dr. King and Andrew Young had in mind, what Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass had in mind.
11:39 We're going to become the national coach in this country.
11:41 We've already directed $4.5 billion in capital to underserved neighborhoods, raised credit scores 50 to 100 points, lowering debt $3,800, increasing savings $2,000.
11:49 With somebody making $50,000 a year, that's literally making you bankable.
11:55 At scale.
11:57 By the way, you know there's never been a riot in a 700 credit score neighborhood in all of America's history?
12:01 [Laughter]
12:10 They don't riot, they go shopping.
12:13 So you want to stabilize this country.
12:15 Forget about the stuff you cannot control.
12:17 I can't control how you feel about me.
12:19 But you raise credit scores 100 points, neighborhood by neighborhood, and you stabilize this country.
12:25 And you turn us from consumers to capitalists.
12:29 At scale.
12:31 Jessica Taylor is here from Goldman Sachs, the 1 million black women initiative.
12:36 Jessica, raise your hand.
12:38 [Applause]
12:40 That's never been seen before.
12:42 Operation Open is the 1 million black business initiative, which Time wrote up.
12:46 Since George Floyd's murder, God rest his soul, we've created 400,000 black businesses in less than 4 years.
12:54 There's only 3.1 million in the country.
12:56 That's 12%.
12:57 Don't tell me what we cannot do.
12:59 We are the business plan for the rest of this century.
13:06 This country needs us as a soul, a savior, and a light on the hill.
13:14 [APPLAUSE]