I am honored to be partnering with Sandy Baruah, CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Mike Duggan and other leaders in Detroit around our Detroit Uplift 2020 initiative, focused on bringing a partnered network of more than 60 HOPE Inside and HOPE Inside for Kids locations to the greater Detroit area.

Here Sandy and the Chamber weigh in on our connected effort to encourage our federal government, and specifically the U.S. Department of the Treasury to rename the U.S. Treasury Annex Building into the Freedman’s Bank Building, which actually occurred this week in Washington, D.C., thanks to the leadership and steadfast support of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

The Freedman’s Bank was created in 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln to ‘teach freed slaves about money,’ and to open the free enterprise system to all after the civil war.  The bank was later run by Frederick Douglass following Lincoln’s assassination.

We see our growing HOPE Inside network as a modern day extension of Lincoln’s Freedman’s Bank.

We want to help turn every modern bank today into a Freedman’s Bank, every community we engage in, into a Freedman’s Community, and every public school where we engaged as a Freedman’s School.

Here is the piece from the Detroit News, focused on economic inclusion there, on the ground.

Baruah: Economic inclusion unlocks community potential

We look forward to seeing Sandy Baruah and a prominent delegation of Detroit leaders at our HOPE Global Forum Annual Meeting this week, here in Atlanta.

Let’s go…

John Hope Bryant