When Hope Dies, Misery Moves In

23 Years to the day after the Rodney King Riots. Here comes a Riot.

As Operation HOPE prepares to report out on the results of our work, on-the-ground, in urban, inner-city and under-served communities across the nation, on the 23rd anniversary of the birth of Operation HOPE immediately following the Rodney King Riots of 1992 in South Los Angeles, community celebration turned into community solace.   Solace this time — for Baltimore, Maryland.

My heart simply broke this week, when I heard about the double tragedy in Baltimore, Maryland.  And while we don’t yet know the full details surrounding the death of a young man in police custody, what we do know is that a proud American city exploded in a destructive and extraordinarily hurtful urban riot in America.  As I write this piece, the city is still very much, unsettled.

People are searching for answers, to this crisis.  I have some answers.

Here I present answers, but not only for this riot in Baltimore.  I am talking about the riots recently in Ferguson, MO, and the urban riots that gave birth to Operation HOPE of 1992 in South Central Los Angeles, namely the Rodney King Riots.

And while the details are different in each and every case, and the pain that triggered the crisis is not to be minimized in any way, the underlying realities remain strikingly consistent.

Here are five factors that underly every every urban crisis I have witnessed:

1. African-Americans never got The Memo. 150 years ago last month (March 3rd, 1865), President Abraham Lincoln created a Freedman’s Bank chartered to ’teach freed slaves about money.’  President Lincoln was killed 5 weeks later.  

The legendary Frederick Douglass tried to run the bank, and while he invested $10,000 of his own money in an attempt to save the bank, the bank ultimately failed on his watch. The reason: the bank had been ‘gamed,’ after Lincoln’s death. Specifically, the bank's charter was changed and perverted away from its intended purpose by then President Andrew Johnson, one of the worst U.S. President’s America has ever seen or experience. 

Leaders at the time said ’the failure of the Freedman’s Bank did more to set freed slaves back than 10 more years of slavery.’  Half of the 73,000 depositors, all former Black slaves, lost every dime.  

This massive fiscal breach was never repaired, and the topic of teaching Black America about the American free enterprise system and the power of economic empowerment was not approached again until Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.  Unfortunately, Dr. King was killed on April 4th, 1968, before even his first march of the Poor People’s Campaign.

Oddly enough, President Lincoln and Dr. King were killed not only in the very same month of April, but the very same month of both the modern day Baltimore, and Rodney King Riots. The very same month (April), which the nation proclaims to be -- Financial Literacy Month.  You cannot make this sort of thing up.

Here’s a factoid for you.   African-Americans in the United States, and Africans on the African continent, are the only races of people that created a political power base before an economic one.  This alone, explains so much.

2. The failure of a market economy.   While there have been countless African-Americans over time who have excelled in entrepreneurship, business and enterprise in America, the creation of a functioning market economy has never been at the very center of African-American priorities in our communities, and nation.  

Fully 90% of our intellectual capital in the African-American community -- be they Ph.D's, J.D.'s (attorneys), overall leadership and larger than life thinkers -- are focused on social justice and civil rights.  Not silver rights, access and ownership. That made tons of sense from 1619 through 1969.  But today, the ground game has fundamentally changed, but much of our software focused on the challenge has not.

Or put another way, it’s not we got The Memo on free enterprise and capitalism, opportunity and job creation and screwed it up. We simply never, ever got The Memo.  Government intervention has from time to time been at the center of our strategic direction, but never a market economy.  That's an observation mind you, not a criticism.  I am looking for answers, not picking a fight.

3. No jobs, economic opportunity, and no hope.  Gallup polling around the world has consistently shown that the most important thing for the 7B people on the planet is a job.  Or as my friend Van Jones has said, “the best way to stop a bullet is a job.”  Amen.

When there are no jobs, nor a prospect for economic opportunity and what I call the modern definition of freedom — self determination — then it is hard for young people to have hope.  And there is nothing more dangerous than young people without jobs or opportunity, Internet connected, and with too much much time on their hands.  Put simply, the most dangerous person in the world is a person without hope.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that "riots are the language of the unheard..."

4. Depression and lack of hope sets in.  I believe that 70% of Black Americans are clinically, undiagnosed, depressed.  200 years of slavery, followed by 100 years of Jim Crow, ending within this generation’s lifetime, is enough to depress almost anyone.  And if half of poverty is low self esteem and a lack of confidence in oneself, this one dimension explains so much.  Pain, just builds on pain, until something finally gives.

5. Mainstream America checks out.  This one gets me frustrated the most, because this choice was and is today fully ours to make.  

During Dr. King’s day, people made it clear —they loved him, or they hated him. But they let him know precisely what they felt.  Today, people don’t seem to care enough about you to hate you.  I call it radical indifference. And indifference is the death nail of the soul.

After all of this, you are pretty much done. When hope dies, misery moves in. And misery is a powder keg for any crisis with a fuse attached.

I didn’t give up on South Los Angeles following the Rodney King Riots of 1992, and I am not giving up on Baltimore now. I am not giving up on America. I believe in America, and all of the aspects, elements and people that make up this great country.  We cannot afford to leave anyone behind. 

Operation HOPE, working closely with other leaders from government, community and the private sector -- and yes even Republicans and Democrats alike --  helped to create a new era of aspirational success in South Los Angeles.

We have recently partnered with Regions Bank, the City of St. Louis Treasurer’s Office and others to launch HOPE Inside locations in, around and near Ferguson, MO, and soon we will double down in Baltimore, Maryland. We call our plan Project 5117.  

The question that each of us must ask ourselves, our employers, partners, neighbors, families and communities -- is what can we do to both build more hope, and bridge back from societal indifference.  It can be done.

But we cannot give up.  Remember, rainbows after storms. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first.

Okay, let’s go.

John Hope Bryant is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE and Bryant Group Ventures, an Inc. Magazine/800-CEO-READ bestselling business author ofLOVE LEADERSHIP: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass). His newest bestselling book is How The Poor Can Save Capitalism: Rebuilding the Path to the Middle Class (Berrett Koehler Publishing).

Bryant is a Member of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans, co-founder of the Gallup-HOPE Index with the Gallup Organization, and co-chair for Project 5117, which is a plan for the rebirth of underserved America.

Bryant is the only bestselling author on economics in the world who is also of African-American descent.

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Photo courtesy of Operation HOPE and Banking on Our Future