When CODE M Magazine set out to find our first man of the year, we wanted to find a person that is making a difference in the Black community. We wanted to find someone that transcends what we have come to expect from Black leaders today.
Orating is no longer enough. Black people are at a crossroads and desperately need a leader that can do as well as he can talk. Empty promises are no longer acceptable to the Black race. Organizations like Black Lives Matter and The Push Coalition, where millions are given, but nothing is returned do not qualify. Blacks today need something real.
After a deep discussion and a vast search, one man continued to surface as a clear winner. CODE M Magazine is proud to announce that our 2023 Man of the Year is, Chairman John Hope Bryant.
Chairman John Hope Bryant is that Transcendent figure that Black America needs right now. Bryant is the President and CEO of Operation Hope, a national nonprofit charged with the task of pulling Black people up from poverty. Bryant understands that if anything is going to change in the Black community, it must start with Black people developing a better relationship with money.
If you see Bryant on social media discussing his agenda, you quickly learn why he was chosen as man of the year. Bryant has the integrity of Barak Obama, the orating skills of Muhammad Ali, and the star power of Harry Belafonte. He does speak plainly and he does not apologize for his brash style of communication.
Bryant speaks his mind. He is a free man. Free from the burden of having to dance for the proverbial Mr. Charlie. He does not have to police his abrupt stylistic teachings for fear of losing funding. And lastly, he does not have to invent a fake scenario to make Blacks trust him, he is from the streets. He knows what he is talking about.
Bryant was born on February 6, 1966, in Los Angeles, California, and raised primarily in Compton, and in the South-Central area of Los Angeles, by parents Juanita Smith and Johnnie Will Smith. Bryant started his first business at age 10, a neighborhood candy store. At age 15 he enrolled in the private K-12 Hollywood Professional School and made connections which led to a career in acting on television.
On May 5, 1992, Bryant founded Operation HOPE, Inc. immediately following the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, California.
Spearheaded by Bryant, the first Bankers Bus tour occurred while parts of the city were still on fire. Bryant has organized and led over fifteen bankers bus tours since HOPE’s inception in 1992, including the cities of Los Angeles, Maywood and Oakland, California, Anacostia, D.C. and Atlanta, Georgia, with the purpose of encouraging financial investment in low-to-mod communities.
On January 22, 2008, Bryant was appointed vice-chairman of the President’s Council on Financial Literacy by U.S. President George W. Bush.[2] He continued this work under President Barack Obama as part of the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability (PACFC).[16] He was appointed chairman of the new Subcommittee on the Underserved and Community Empowerment for the PACFC in January 2012.
Today Operation HOPE, and Chairman Bryant has a goal to change Black America’s relationship with money.
“I am going to use the system that was used to oppress, against itself, to impress us. “We are the only non-profit, in the history of the US, to operate inside of a bank branch,” Bryant said.
“Right now, we have people waiting in bank branches all over the United States to help people get their financial house in order,” Bryant said.
Operation Hope has banking relationships with at least fifteen different banking systems across the US and expects to add more. Bryant wants Black people, and anyone else in need, to be able to get the assistance they need to impact their financial health.
“Black people have the worst credit in America. So, when they are denied credit, it could be racism, or it could be not. The bottom line is we intend to change that.” Bryant said.
Operation Hope wants to help increase the FICO score of anyone who enters the program by fifty-four over a 6-month period, with the goal of increasing it by 120 over a 12-month period. They anticipate a reduction in debt service for the anyone entering the program to be reduced by $3,800 dollars over the next year.
“We are going to wrap our arms around you and help you increase your savings by $1,500 dollars so you can begin to breathe and create the future you want,” Bryant said.
And a better future is what Blacks need. The pandemic was hard on the Black community. Blacks, on average, do not have more than $50 dollars saved. So, if a crisis comes, they are not able to financially survive the problem. Bryant wants to change that.
He has his work cut out for him. The well-known history of how Blacks have been kept out of the American dream has created generation after generation of poverty for the community. The country was built off the backs of free labor for centuries and after slavery was over, if Blacks showed any financial progress at all, their communities were burned down, and their land was stolen.
Over the last 70 years Blacks did enjoy some advancement financially, but it only came from hard work laboring in jobs that did not provide generational wealth. Today Blacks are educated and enjoy more prosperity than ever before, however as a race, there are still far too many who do not understand how to make and save enough money to live well.
“We all understand the history of what happened to us. But once we do the things that I am talking about we can help move people from being Black to green,” Bryant said.
“We have to have a movement that goes from the streets and civil rights to working from the shoulders up and have the mindset that we need to have prosperity goals,” Bryant said.
Bryant wants to move Black people to a place where they can free themselves through capitalism. Bryant’s business plan for Black America is a very powerful plan. But he does not stop there. Bryant has several initiatives that are bold and ambitious. Those initiatives are.
The 1865 Project
The Third Reconstruction
Freedman’s Bank
Investors Bill of Rights
Financial Literacy for All
Atlanta Child Savings
One million Black Businesses (1MBB)
These aggressive initiatives are why CODE choose Bryant for man of the year. His platform is moving the needle for change in the Black community, and it directly impacts Black people at the grass roots. Bryant’s goal of creating one million Black businesses by 2030 would be the sea change the race needs for Blacks to leave behind the legacy they want generations to come.
That kind of generational wealth created could pull the race up of poverty and make the entire country better. It would help America and make Bryant one of the most important figures Black America, and the Unites States has ever seen.
“I am trying to create something everyone can feel. I cannot change how somebody feels about you. I cannot change whether somebody is racist. I cannot change discrimination. All other forms of freedom, except financial, are temporary,” Bryant Said.
And he is right. 2024 is going to be an important year for Blacks in America. Black people have never been more aware of their relationship with the country and their own plight amongst themselves. No one is coming to save the race. No political party, no macro-factor, and no religion is going to help people.
Blacks understand that police brutality is real. Blacks understand that inflation is attacking them, just like everyone else. And Blacks understand that everybody is fighting for the goods, after going to get the right degree and working endlessly to make good decisions to still must rob Peter to pay Paul.
If Blacks are going to change, they are going to have to do it for themselves. Bryant is setting the system ablaze and hopes the fires spread to every person who needs some help.
“The only freedom that no one can change, the only freedom that is permanent, is financial freedom,” Bryant said.
In 2024 Black America will have to help pick who is going to president for the next four years. The options do not leave much hope for a change in how the community is treated or presented. With Bryant and Operation Hopes’ help, Black America can choose itself. It can choose and create a better path forward by creating financial literacy as the foundation to become the class of people it always knew it could be.
CODE M Magazine salutes Chairman John Hope Bryant for his efforts to be a difference maker, to use his purpose-driven life to help his community, and for being brave enough to take on the challenge of change the culture. John Hope Bryant is our 2023 Man of the Year.
