By John Hope Bryant

(NNPA NEWSWIRE) – How do you salute a man who walked amongst the angels? You start by making sure that history accurately reflects his name. This is my modest contribution to the telling of his vital history and legacy.

The Rev. Dr. Cecil ‘Chip’ Murray changed my life—literally.

He was more than a mentor or a supporter or a good friend to a “young man coming up.” He was in every way — particularly during my young evolving years as a young man in the making — my spiritual father.

Rev. Murray and I met originally through my brother and friend Mark Whitlock, who is now the Rev. Mark Whitlock, leader of one of the three largest AME churches in the nation – Reid Temple AME Church in Maryland. Back then, he was an executive in the making, first at a property title company, and then a banker at Wells Fargo. But what Mark nor I knew then was Rev. Murray had already decided, in his spirit, that our lives would both be transformed into a life’s calling.

Very seldomly do you meet someone that you believe is “otherworldly,” someone that you genuinely believe, walks their talk, and might even qualify as a saint on this earth. A true prophet from on high, representing God almighty right here on earth. That there is one Rev. Dr. Cecil ‘Chip’ Murray.

It is impossible to communicate in an op-ed the power and transformational impact that this man had on my life, but I will try by telling you a couple intimate stories about Dr. Murray.

When I first showed up at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, the Rodney King Riots of 1992 had engulfed the city, and everyone important at the time seemed to be sitting in Rev. Murray’s office.

This included the governor (the Republican Pete Wilson), the mayor (the legendary Democrat Tom Bradley, also an early mentor of mine), civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Catholic bishop, the Jewish rabbi, the Muslim imam and every other who’s-who from the city had crammed into this one man’s office — all seeking his approval and wise counsel.

As a young man of 26 that Rev. Murray had reluctantly agreed to mentor, I was invited to come in and take a seat, even though I had zero role nor power nor responsibility. One might say, I was actually in the way. But Rev. Murray saw something in me, and invited me in to take a quiet seat in the corner when I showed up at his office, looking for a way to help following the citywide unrest. It was after—and in many ways because of this meeting—that I ultimately founded Operation HOPE.

Rev. Murray told me to take my business skills (and my high contacts in local finance) and put them to work “rebuilding our community.” Within the week, on May 5, 1992, I organized the first Bankers Bus Tour through a still smoldering South Central Los Angeles. The result of this first tour was a commitment from the assembled bankers to fund the rebuilding of Handler’s Pharmacy, a Black-owned pharmacy located at Western Ave. and 42nd St.

That was the first commitment to “rebuild” by anyone, and involved leaders from government, community and the private sector. It also focused on a quality that later became my strength and global calling card: outcomes and results. I ended up founding Operation HOPE in 1992 with a $61,000 grant requested by then-Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley from then-Republican President George H.W. Bush. It was an SBA 7J grant, made on a bipartisan basis. This also became a quality I would find useful for 30 years of “getting stuff done.”

On the 10th anniversary of the Rodney King Riots – 22 years ago today – Rev. Murray and First AME Church partnered together to host then-U.S. President George W. Bush in South Central Los Angeles to salute the rebuilding, joined by 700 leaders from across the Southern California community, inclusive of both major political parties and all racial groups. Classic Cecil “Chip” Murray.

Today, Operation HOPE is the largest financial literacy coaching, counseling and economic empowerment organization in the nation, with 300 full-time HOPE Inside offices in 40-plus states, and its partners have invested more than $4.5 billion into our communities, raising credit scores, lowering debt, increasing savings and creating minority homeowners and small business owners.  The 1MBB (1 Million Black Businesses) initiative has inspired, created and grown more than 400,000 Black businesses since 2020 alone, equal to more than 12 percent of all Black businesses in America. This is the living legacy of Rev. Cecil Murray, which began in 1992.

But Rev. Murray also sparked and inspired something much closer to home. He inspired me, but he directly mobilized my brother and friend Rev. Whitlock, along with his most trusted senior team members, the Rev. Dr. Steve Johnson and Peggy Hill, to lead his newest church initiative back then, something he boldly called FAME Renaissance. 

Just some of the results of FAME Renaissance, included: 300 jobs for teenagers at Disneyland every year for 10 years; 3,000 jobs; a Fame Renaissance loan fund; a Fame Renaissance venture capital fund; a Fame Renaissance Transportation Program that transported 1 million people annually; a Fame Renaissance environmental protection program, which saved 1.5 billion square acres of water; a Fame Renaissance commercial office building of 75,000 square feet; a Fame Incubator Program, which trained 1,000 entrepreneurs and started 400 small business; a Fame Renaissance Home Loan Program which funded 500 homes, a FAME Housing program that built affordable housing projects of 700 units with low- to moderate-income tenants, encompassing seven buildings; and so much more.

Sometimes you run into someone that changes your life, and the world we all live in too. That man, for me at 26 years old, was the Rev. Dr. Cecil “Chip” Murray.

And this one thing I know – and hope that you now understand this to be true, too – his powerful, one-of-a-kind legacy, lives.

John Hope Bryant, the founder of Operation HOPE and spiritual son of the Rev. Dr. Cecil “Chip” Murray, can be reached at jhbhope@operations.org. 

The post IN MEMORIAM: Tribute to the ministry, life, and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Cecil ‘Chip’ Murray appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

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