Sister Simone Campbell, SSS, a towering voice for social and economic justice issues in the modern American Catholic Church, and the recipient of the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom, has written the foreword to a new book that provides a realistic prescription for how to engender hope and resilience in these challenging times in the nation.
The book, HOPE: On The Mountain Of Fear by the nationally acclaimed Detroit journalist and standard-bearer for economic justice issues Bankole Thompson, which is already receiving glowing endorsements from leaders in academia, public policy and business, leading members of Congress as well as advocates for social change will be released in the next few weeks. It is a compendium of insightful and analytical essays expertly written by diverse individuals from around the country who are described as messengers of hope in the book on some of the most pressing issues facing the nation ranging from healthcare affordability including veterans care, the future of the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities, state of the news media to the debilitating housing crisis. It offers pragmatic and thoughtful solutions to end the nightmare of hopelessness that many are currently dealing with.
Campbell, the author of the book, Hunger for Hope, and a longtime anti-poverty champion and an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform, was the leader of the historic “Nuns on the Bus” campaign for tax justice when she was the executive director of the Washington D.C. Catholic lobby, NETWORK. A close ally of the late Pope Francis’ anti-poverty crusades, Campbell, a lawyer by training is regarded as one of the nation’s most important voices that sits at the intersection of faith and public policy.
Campbell has long followed and admired the work of Thompson over the years. He is the founder and dean of the anti-poverty think tank, The PuLSE Institute, a twice-a-week opinion columnist at The Detroit News and the host of the podcast, Bankole’s Nation.
In the foreword to Thompson’s book, Campbell, waxes powerfully about the compelling need to muster hope in the current dispensation by demanding an end to hunger for the millions of families who are the victims of economic injustice while calling for a humane immigration policy noting that “immigrants have contributed greatly to the thriving of our nation.”
“Hope can weave us together in challenging times if we stay connected in community of some sort. Wherever we look there are opportunities to make a difference by being part of the fabric of our society. None of us have to do BIG things, but we each must do SOME thing. Hope in these challenging times might just be the new green shoots of spring time growth that we need. That is what will see us through,” Campbell wrote.
She has received numerous awards, including the “Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award” and the “Defender of Democracy Award” from the international Parliamentarians for Global Action. On July 7, 2022, President Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Campbell has often been featured in the national and international media, including appearances on 60 Minutes, The Colbert Report, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
“Sister Simone Campbell is a national treasure. I feel honored that she readily accepted my invitation to write a very powerful and thoughtful foreword to this timely book,” said Thompson. “There is a fierce urgency of hope right now and no one could better make the case for it in the book than Sister Campbell who has used hope in her vocation to inspire so many people around the country and the world.”
Thompson added, “In these times, we need voices of conscience like Sister Campbell to speak truth to power courageously and that is what she has done in writing the foreword to HOPE: On The Mountain Of Fear. I hope readers of the book will be inspired to challenge themselves to not just sit around in despair but to do something meaningful in their own communities to turn fear and indifference into tenacity and persistence for positive social change.”
A member of the National Press Club of Washington D.C., Thompson, is one of the first Black editors in the nation to conduct a series of exclusive sit-down interviews with former President Barack Obama. He is an accomplished author of several books including Fiery Conscience, published in 2023, about his decades of speaking truth to power, and which received a review Forbes. The book is also listed as a reference in the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture, the leading depository on the global Black experience. He has appeared severally on CNN and other major news outlets.
As a champion for economic justice issues, his advocacy has been partly centered on what has been called the Bankole Thompson Doctrine, which declares that business leaders have a moral and ethical obligation to invest in anti-poverty efforts.
In January of 2018, the late civil rights giant Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., personally presented Thompson with the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s Let Freedom Ring Journalism Award for being a preeminent voice of conscience and courage on economic justice in the nation during a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
HOPE: On The Mountain of Fear is his sixth book.
