In what is expected to be a historically significant and morally consequential evening, nationally acclaimed journalist, author and standard-bearer for economic justice Bankole Thompson, will make his first appearance at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat Center in Detroit and deliver his first conversation before an exclusively Catholic audience during a program centered on his latest sixth book, HOPE: On The Mountain Of Fear.
The event on Wednesday, June 24, 5pm represents more than a literary appearance. It is expected to become a rare intersection of journalism, moral philosophy, democratic reflection and Catholic social consciousness at a time when many Americans increasingly question whether the nation still possesses the ethical imagination necessary to confront poverty, alienation and democratic decline.
The book is a compendium of insightful and analytical essays written by diverse individuals from around the country to engender hope and resilience in challenging times.
“Fear has become one of the dominant forces shaping American life. Fear of change, fear of truth, fear of one another. My book asks whether hope is still strong enough to challenge that fear,” Thompson said. “I believe journalism, at its highest calling, is not simply about information. It is about moral witness.”
Thompson added, “That is why it is profoundly meaningful to stand for the first time at St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat Center before a Catholic audience at a moment when the nation is searching not only for political answers, but for moral direction. The gathering at St. Paul of the Cross represents something larger than a conversation. It is an encounter between faith, conscience and the unfinished struggle for justice.”
Sister Simone Campbell, one of the most powerful voices for social and economic justice from the American Catholic Church and a 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, who has long admired Thompson’s work, wrote the book’s foreword.
“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 springtime growth that we need. That is what will see us through,” Campbell wrote in the foreword.
Marc Morial, one of the nation’s most prominent civil rights leaders and former president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and who is the president and CEO of the National Urban League, the nation’s largest civil rights organization, wrote the book’s epilogue.
In it Morial described Thompson as an “award-winning journalist and public thinker,” while calling the book a “groundbreaking anthology,” adding that, “In a time of division, uncertainty, and urgent questions about the future of the American democratic experiment, HOPE: On The Mountain Of Fear is a resounding call to courage, conviction, and collective purpose.”
Among other notable figures endorsing the book is the acclaimed dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, Erwin Chemerinksy, who was named twice as the most influential person in legal education in the United States.
“At a time when the possibility of progressive change seems bleak, this collection of wonderful essays provides urgently needed hope. Written from a variety of perspectives and on many different topics, these essays provide a blueprint for a future with economic justice and meaningful equality of opportunity. The inescapable conclusion from this book is that we can make it happen,” Chemerinksy wrote in endorsing the book.
Maryland Democratic Congressman and former U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer also endorsed the book.
“Everyone in the Congress – and the country – ought to read my friend Bankole Thompson’s book. At a time when division, inequality, and injustice in America often feel inescapable, Thompson reminds us that there is a way out: the path of solidarity, democracy, and hope,” Hoyer wrote.
For years, Thompson, the founder of the anti-poverty and economic justice think tank The PuLSE Institute, has distinguished himself as one of the country’s most persistent voices examining the relationship between economic injustice, public morality and the erosion of democratic trust. His work has consistently challenged political and economic systems that normalize inequality while demanding renewed moral seriousness in national life.
Thompson has also written admiringly about the late Pope Francis, particularly the pontiff’s uncompromising global critique of what Francis often described as an economy that “kills” when profit is detached from human dignity. Thompson has long viewed Francis’ anti-poverty crusades not simply as religious teachings, but as moral indictments against indifference, exclusion and the spiritual emptiness of unchecked inequality.
After Francis died, Thompson wrote a tribute calling the outspoken leader of the world’s 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church a “surgeon of freedom.”
Against that backdrop, Thompson’s appearance at St. Paul of the Cross is expected to resonate deeply with audiences shaped by Catholic traditions of conscience, solidarity and social justice.
Set within one of Detroit’s most contemplative spiritual environments, the evening will examine whether hope can still function as a moral and democratic force in an era increasingly defined by fear, political exhaustion, institutional distrust and cultural fragmentation.
“I have long admired the late Pope Francis because he understood that indifference to the poor is not merely a political failure. It is a spiritual failure,” Thompson said. “He challenged the world to measure success not by strength of markets, but by the condition of the poor, the excluded and the forgotten. That moral challenge remains urgent today.”
Rather than treating hope as sentiment or emotional escape, Thompson is expected to frame it as an act of intellectual and moral defiance — a refusal to surrender human dignity to cynicism, cruelty or despair. The discussion will explore widening economic disparities, the crisis of ethical leadership, the growing loneliness of modern civic life and the dangerous consequences of a society where outrage often replaces reflection and performance eclipses truth.
The program will also confront the evolving role of journalism itself in a fractured information age, raising urgent questions about whether public discourse can still sustain honesty, accountability and democratic responsibility amid the rise of disinformation, ideological tribalism and manufactured outrage.
Audience members will participate in an evening of reflection, civic examination and public dialogue focused on democracy, poverty, faith, economic justice and the moral future of the nation. The event will include a Q&A conversation, audience engagement and a book signing.
More than a speaking engagement, Thompson’s first visit to St. Paul of the Cross Passionist Retreat Center is expected to stand as a historically meaningful encounter between journalism and faith-based moral inquiry — grounded in the conviction that societies cannot endure when they lose their capacity for conscience, compassion and hope.
Thompson is a leading journalistic voice known for confronting injustice, challenging power, and advancing a fearless vision of equity, accountability and democratic renewal. He is one of the first Black editors in the nation to conduct a series of historic exclusive sit-down interviews with former President Barack Obama is a twice-a-week opinion columnist at The Detroit News and the host of the podcast, Bankole’s Nation. He is the founder of The Bankole Thompson Center, a newly established youth leadership empowerment initiative to help build next generation leaders.
A member of the National Press Club of Washington D.C., Thompson is an accomplished author of several books, including “Fiery Conscience”, about his decades of speaking truth to power reviewed by Forbes and listed as a reference in the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division of the New Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He has appeared severally on CNN and other major news outlets.
Thompson’s work which is defined by a rigorous focus on economic justice, racial equality and poverty is often linked to the tradition of Frederick Douglass speaking truth to power.
In 2023, he was appointed to serve on the National Board of Directors of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the noted civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who served as its first President, and which led the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Thompson is the first journalist in history to sit at the highest decision-making body of the organization Dr. King infused his personal legacy into.
In January of 2018, the late civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Louis 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 during a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In a rare honor, the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library in 2015, established the Bankole Thompson Papers to preserve his work alongside the papers of Michigan governors. In 2018, he received the U.S. Congressional Record of Testimonial placing his body of work into the official record of the 118th Congress.
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.
