Operation HOPE in Nashville, and our strategic partner there Firs Horizon and First Tennessee Bank played host to a senior U.S. Treasury Department official at our HOPE Inside, Nashville@First Tennessee Bank location there.  The Operation HOPE family was honored to receive Mr. Amias Moore Gerety, Acting Assisant Secretary for Financial Institions for the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C.

I worked closely with Amias, as well as Wally Adeyemo, now Deputy Director of the U.S. National Security Council, on what ultimately became the formal renaming of the former U.S. Treasury Annex Building to the Freedman’s Bank Building.  

The federal building on the White House campus was renamed by Treasury Sceretary Jack Lew, at our recommendation, in honor of the ‘striving’ of former American slaves and the unfinished work of President Abraham Lincoln’s Freedman’s Bank vision, which was signed into law on March 3rd, 1865.  This was only the second time in history that a federal building on the White House campus has been renamed.

The growing HOPE Inside network of locations, which operate as a sort of ‘one-stop-shop, and a concierged financial services experience for the poor, the working class and he struggling middle class,’ operates presently within banks, grocery stores, government offices, houses of faith, major hotels (for their employees), academic institutions — even a police department headquarters now.   First Horizon and First Tennessee Bank represent one of our best regional partners for what is increasingly being viewed as a national model to uplift and to empower underserved communities and populations.

Each HOPE Inside location carries certification from HUD for homeownership counseling, the SBA, FDIC, CFPB and a range of other federal government entities and partners. The HOPE Inside network is the national outreach partner for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Okay, let’s go…

John Hope Bryant

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