A record 1,200 people brought ideas, energy and curiosity to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition’s (NCRC) 2023 Just Economy Conference last week, spending two days building their networks, celebrating our movement’s successes and hearing from some of the heaviest hitters in the economic justice space.
The largest Just Economy Conference in NCRC history was also one of the newsiest: As attendees arrived to the Washington Hilton, the banking industry was reeling from three regional bank failures. Some regulators who’d been scheduled to speak were being called to Capitol Hill to testify before Congress, but still made time to connect with the NCRC audience either from the main stage or via video calls.
Conference attendees heard a rich mixture of personal reflections and policy specifics from such prominent policymakers as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu, Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Martin Gruenberg.
“A just economy means no one in this country has to sleep on the street or under a park bench,” Secretary Fudge said in a speech that spotlighted the housing needs of the formerly incarcerated and other highly vulnerable groups.
Deputy Secretary Graves reflected on his own ancestry, tracing the family’s history from his enslaved great-great-great-great-grandparents through their descendants who broke barriers as hotel owners and patent-holding inventors, and expressing humble gratitude for the opportunities life has afforded him.
“But imagine all of the millions of kids across this country who have great ideas, who can’t turn those ideas into lives of dignity, because they don’t have the opportunity because of the challenges that they face on a daily basis,” Graves said. “That’s why this conference is so critical for our country, for the people in every one of our communities across the country.”
In a nod to the importance of the work NCRC’s 757 member organizations do every day, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra used his mainstage speech to unveil the agency’s long-awaited final rule for small business lending data collection under Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank reform package passed in 2010.
When the crowd stood and roared in approval as Chopra first announced the final rule, the director laughed and ad-libbed.
“I have to say what it’s about first, you can’t give praise that quick!” Chopra chuckled over the applause, proceeding to detail the scope and impact of the new regulation.
Like many other mainstage speakers, Chopra also took time to comment on the ongoing turmoil in the banking industry prompted by the failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate and Signature Bank.
While Chairman Gruenberg and others emphasized key differences between the government’s response to this crisis and the bailouts of 2008, Chopra characterized the crisis as a chance to reflect on structural flaws in our economic systems and the fraying of traditional connections between private profit and the public interest.
“As I think everybody in this room knows, more and more sectors of the economy are dominated by a handful of giants, run by a small clique of people who are not always responsible or accountable,” Chopra said. “When large firms or large banks have liquidity issues, there’s all sorts of government action to make sure [they survive]. But when an individual or a family has a liquidity issue, they get a mountain of fees on them, making it even harder. So I think about that a lot.”
For many who joined us, the highlight of the 2023 Just Economy Conference was the annual Awards Gala on Wednesday night. NCRC members took the stage to celebrate some of the major community benefits agreements inked with banks in the past year. Board Chair Katy Crosby and President and CEO Jesse Van Tol presented lifetime achievement awards to three lions of the movement – Rep. Waters (who unfortunately had to live-stream in via Zoom due to late votes in the House that evening), New Jersey Citizen Action head Phyllis Salowe-Kaye and NCRC Senior Fellow Josh Silver.
Van Tol also delivered a memorable and poignant speech honoring his late mother-in-law, Bonita Williams Cooper, whose remarkable life was full of accomplishments – but cut short by an illness she and her siblings acquired after moving to a historically redlined Baltimore neighborhood where environmental racism has cut the life expectancies of local Black residents by some 16 years compared to their White neighbors.
“There is an America out there that is worth fighting for. For a future where Bonita lived another 20 years, a future where Tyre Nichols is still alive, the kind of future we can be proud to hand down to the next generation,” Van Tol said. “We can’t keep sleeping while our brothers and sisters get shot in the street. And we can’t keep sleeping while the wealth divide keeps growing and we can’t keep sleeping while we destroy the planet, wreaking havoc on people and communities. We can’t keep sleeping while people are dying far too young.”
Away from the mainstage, attendees packed breakout rooms for discussions on a sweeping range of subjects including the importance of Community Development Financial Institutions on tribal lands, the risks and rewards of artificial intelligence in lending, African American leadership on climate change and resilience, the implementation of recently-issued Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rules and a host of other topics.
As crowds moved between the main ballroom and the breakout rooms, they passed through the Just Economy Pavilion, where NCRC’s research staff presented interactive displays of their work. Many stopped at the pavilion’s photobooth to snap some pics with old friends and new comrades:
The parade of regulators and elected officials was punctuated with quite different conversations on the mainstage. Journalists Jelani Cobb and Karen Attiah held a rousing discussion about how race and racism shape the entirety of American life. NCRC Chief of Organizing, Policy and Equity Dedrick Asante-Muhammad hosted a chat with New York Times journalist and author Emily Flitter about how the banking industry has historically undercut Black families’ wealth-building efforts. And a trio of leaders from major funders of economic justice work from the Gates Foundation, Goldman Sachs Foundation and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy walked the audience through what their organizations look for when sifting through grant proposals and how they see their role in making a better world.
After the final of these talks, it was time to wrap things up. Attendees moved upstairs to eat, drink and be merry at a closing reception hosted by the Rock Steady Project, a local go-go band who have also helped highlight gentrification issues in Washington, DC in recent years.
