John Hope Bryant at HOPE Inside Memphis @First Tennessee Bank

John Hope Bryant at HOPE Inside Memphis @First Tennessee Bank

Today was a special day in Memphis, Tennessee.  I arrived in the city early this morning for an 11am program to unveil our second HOPE Inside, Memphis @First Tennessee location.

I joined my friend and partner Bryan Jordan, Chairman and CEO of First Horizon Bank and his team, who originally made a commitment to open 5 HOPE Inside locations, and as you will read in the enclosed article from the Memphis Business Chronicle, they now plan to open double that amount in the state of Tennessee alone.

Today we opened a HOPE Inside serving the Orange Mound community, founded in the 1890’s as one of the largest African-American residential communities in the country.  Built on the land of a former plantation dating back to the 1830’s, Orange Mound has gone through many changes in its 125 plus year history.  Significant growth and stability through 1970, five years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, and in the 1980’s, significant decline with the onset of drugs and with that, crime and decay impacting the area.

Today, Orange Mound is on the rebound, and hope is in the air.  The opening of the HOPE Inside location today, is part of that trajectory towards local renewal.

The Operation HOPE family, and our growing silver rights movement for all, are proud to be partners in Memphis generally, joining Sun Trust Banks and First Horizon Bank, and we are proud specifically, to be engaged here in Orange Mound. Making a difference.

As you will read here, and here, in our other First Tennessee Bank location for HOPE Inside there, credit scores have already started their increase of 40 points on average for clients there.

Here is the Flickr photos from HOPE Inside Memphis.

The best is yet to come.  Let’s go.

John Hope Bryant

 

 

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