Black Enterprise
Operation Hope Celebrates 30 Years of Advancing Financial Empowerment As it Sets New Black Wealth Agenda
Derek T. Dingle
7 min read

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Roughly 30 years ago, South Central Los Angeles went up in flames.

Several days of rioting sparked on April 29, 1992, in response to the acquittal of four white policemen tied to the brutal beating of Rodney King, an unarmed Black motorist, a year earlier. The vicious beating was caught on film and eventually aired on networks for the entire nation to witness. Within hours of the announcement of the acquittal from the jury—which did not have a single Black juror—Los Angeles was engulfed in one of the worst civil disruptions in American history: with 50 people killed, more than 2,300 injured and about 1,100 damaged buildings at the cost of about $1 billion. Among its most devastated communities: South Central L.A.

From those ashes rose an organization committed to economic empowerment and social justice. That thrust was voiced by enterprising John Hope Bryant when he founded Operation HOPE Inc. on May 5 of that year to change the status of legions locked in poverty. He began his campaign to move “from civil rights in the streets to silver rights in the suites” with a Bankers Bus tour to encourage investment within low-income communities by taking a small group of financial executives throughout distressed areas of L.A, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, among other urban hubs.

Over the past three decades, Bryant has built the largest nonprofit dedicated to financial education and building partnerships with some of the nation’s financial services leviathans to meet its mission: Helping the poor and disenfranchised gain pathways to opportunity and wealth.

A few weeks ago, I attended the Annual Hope Global Forums held at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta in the ballroom where Martin Luther King, Jr. launched the final campaign of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967, months before an assassin’s bullet slew the civil rights leader. It was the first in-person gathering since the pandemic and two years after the slaying of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers—this time, the act of police misconduct was captured on video via cell phone, viewed throughout the globe in real-time, and initiated a renewed call for an end to systemic discrimination and a series of corporate equity pledges.

Operation HOPE
(Image: Courtesy of Operation HOPE)

This year’s event not only celebrated Operation HOPE’s three decades of achievements of serving more than 4 million individuals and directing more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into underserved communities nationwide, but it also sought to set the wealth agenda for Black Americans for 2023—and beyond. The Forum boasted roughly 5,000 delegates from 40 countries and included more than 1 million online viewers. Bryant asserts that the largest event of its kind has been designed “to reimagine the global economy, so the benefits and opportunities of free enterprise are extended to everyone.”

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