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Photo Album: 2023 Deep South Investors Tour

In June 2023, Faith and Money Network took a handful of current and prospective investors with Hope Credit Union on a Trip of Perspective through Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Participants saw firsthand how Hope Credit Union is working to build wealth for Black Americans in a historically and currently underserved and underbanked region of the United States.

The trip also took the group to historical sites in the Deep South, including the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery.

Credit for all photos: Sara Loving

Hope Credit Union directors take the group on a tour of their Memphis facilities, showing the many community organizations and businesses that operate in the building. In the foreground, Holly Cooper (left), Senior VP of Marketing at Hope Credit Union, talks to Susan Taylor.
Stephanie Knight reads staggering statistics about the slave trade at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.
The group arrives at the Jones Valley Teaching Farm in Birmingham and is greeted by executive director Amanda Storey. She tells us more about the program’s growth and impact in the Woodlawn school system. (Pictured L to R: Stephanie Knight, Mimi Michael, Jeanne Marcus, Kate Lasso, Emily Lippert, and Amanda Storey) 
A group photo with the trip participants and some of the leaders from Woodlawn United, a neighborhood development organization in Birmingham. The mural in the photo is part of a project called Blank Space, which is funded by Woodlawn United.
At the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Emily Lippert reads some of the reasons why victims of lynching were targeted, varying from accused murder to voting to “annoying” a white woman.
The group walks across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where Bloody Sunday took place, after reading memorials honoring the protestors that made this a historic site.
A portion of the group poses for a photo on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where Bloody Sunday took place in 1965. (Pictured L to R: Jim Edmonds, Jeanne Marcus, Susan Taylor, JoAnn Huber, Kate Lasso, Mike Little, Mimi Michael)
In Jackson, Mississippi, Chef Nick Wallace tells us about his catering business and Hope’s support of his dreams, both for himself and his community. Chef Wallace owns several local businesses, including a coffee shop called Coffee Prose, and works with Hope Credit Union extensively to give back to his local community through food.
During a driving tour of Jackson, Susan Taylor waves at community members going into a community glass and metal workshop.
The group is greeted at the Visitors Center of Moorhead, Mississippi, by the mayor, George Holland.
Gloria Dickerson tells the group about her business, the Emmett Till Academy, which provides education and development services to youth in Drew, Mississippi, a small town just four miles from where Emmett Till was murdered in 1955.
Rev. Evan Collins of Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis gives the group a short history of the church’s building, built in 1994.
Our last group photo with all the trip participants. (Pictured L to R: Meade Jones Hanna, Stephanie Knight, Mimi Michael, Emily Lippert, Sara Loving, Jim Edmonds, Doug Michael, Mary Wainwright, Mike Little, Rev. Collins Sr., Kate Lasso, Susan Taylor, JoAnn Huber, Rev. Evan Collins, and Joanne Marcus)