STATEMENT FROM JOHN HOPE BRYANT

Founder, Chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE

The events that transpired in our nation’s capital yesterday have left me heartbroken. These types of actions have no place in our society, and need to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. Wrongdoers, wherever we find them, need to be held accountable and prosecuted. 

I am heartbroken because America is not just a country, but history’s greatest idea. America can be anything we want it to be. Yesterday we made it a mockery, not the world’s most vital democracy. 

Yesterday’s events represent a broken ladder 70 years in the making. A broken ladder that has resulted in lack of opportunity for the many, which manifests itself in anger and frustration at the few. We need a business plan for the country, one that will lift up all of God’s children. An economy that grows should include a strategy that expands the existing table of opportunity, and adds new seats of inclusion as well.

There is much work to do, but today I remain hopeful, since rainbows only follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm.