John Hope Bryant

Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup, wrote in his book The Coming Jobs War, on the premise of why the economy stalled "There are two reasons for this. One, business leaders aren't in a 'growth' state of mind. ... They have lost their will to 'dream it, build it,' as our friend, ad man Roy Spence, put it. Second, the country is seriously short on startup companies. We need a minimum of 2 million startups per year to keep our economy and jobs pumping, but we're running at roughly 400,000 a year. Nothing fixes America's economic problems unless the number of startups soars to new heights."

Startups, small businesses run by entrepreneurs, similar to Operation HOPE, are in short supply in modern Detroit, but it was not always this way.

Detroit was built on the rise of the automobile industry, but that rise was actually built on a big, bold and noble American idea: for the people, of the people and by the people. If not for the working poor, struggling class, and the middle class dreamers there would be no Detroit, or the wealth and opportunity that came along with it.

Similar to many powerful American innovations, the automobile industry became sustainable once car prices decreased; this created a larger consumer base. In many ways, the powerful aspirational dreams of the working class -- man and woman, manifested into real outcomes that built modern Detroit.

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