Initiatives of Change - Hope in the Cities

A brief history

1990
Hope in the Cities (HIC) was launched in 1990, as an effort to bring together political, business, and community leaders in Richmond, Virginia, to address the matter of racial healing.

1993
This effort launched Hope in the Cities as a national network in 1993 when these leaders sponsored a conference called Healing the Heart of America: An Honest Conversation on Race, Reconciliation and Responsibility. The conference drew 1,000 participants from 50 U.S. urban centers and 20 foreign countries. It examined underlying racial issues that impact housing, education, police and community relations, and public policy as it relates to families.

1993
A dramatic Unity Walk through the history of the former capital of the Confederacy gave recognition to previously unacknowledged and unmarked sites and events in the city's racial history. On a sweltering afternoon, Richmonders and visitors, urban and suburban residents, Black, White, Latin and Native American, walked a two mile route together, to convert the negative power of hidden history into a positive force to resolve painful racial divisions.

1996
Hope in the Cities launched "A Call to Community" nationally in May 1996, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, in a program that provided a demonstration of honest and respectful public dialogue on race. In launching the Call, Hope in the Cities created a network of over 200 prominent individuals, national organizations and partnering organizations to implement what the Call proposes.