"My mom and dad had a gas station, and we lost it all [which resulted in the family being homeless for six months]. Seeing them fight over money in front of me was seared into my brain. Then when I was 9, a banker dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie came to my school. It was 1976 in South Central L.A., and I didn't know any businessman who wore a suit and had business cards. So I asked him, "Sir, what do you do and how did you get rich legally?"
He talked about the global economy and even though I didn't understand it at the time, I decided that I had to figure out free enterprise and package it and repackage it with poor people in mind. At age 10 I started a candy [store] in my neighborhood and made $300 a week." — John Hope Bryant, centrist founder of Operation HOPE, a financial literacy organization based in Los Angeles
