I was proud to join Bloomberg’s Carol Massar, who served as moderator, and Marcus Shaw, CEO, ALT Finance, which seeks to advance inclusion on Wall Street using the mostly untapped power of HBCUs to do it, on a special panel framed around ‘Measuring the Movement’ at the recent Bloomberg Equality Summit in New York City.
I was proud because Bloomberg holding this Summit, at this time, underscores my core belief — that this social justice movement is anything but fleeting. I believe that we are living in a new era, I call it an era of Silver Rights, and I believe that in this new dimension we will witness ‘social justice through an economic lens.’ And this, is why it is so very important that Bloomberg held this Summit.
The issue of social justice, and social impact in business, I believe is now a key, embedded feature in the future of business itself.
The period between 2020 and 2022 has been transformational for America, and for the world. It included a global health pandemic that rivaled the Spanish Flu of more than 100 years ago, the thwarting of an economic crisis requiring the largest investment in America, by the American government, in America’s history, a social justice reckoning of Black America that is 400 year delayed, and challenge to our very democracy not seen since the siege on the nation’s Capitol Building in the 1800s.
And so yes, I believe that this moment is different. I believe that we are sitting, as I said during my session at the Bloomberg Summit, ‘we are living in a moment in history. But history doesn’t feel historic when you are sitting in it. It just feels like another day. But that does not mean, that the moment is not in fact, historic.’
Let us now see, what we (all) do, with the moment. The action step, is in our hands. I will try to do my part through Operation HOPE and The Promise Homes Company.
John Hope Bryant.