The Pulse Institute

09/21/2024

09/21/2024

Register now for The PuLSE Institute National Economic Conference on Wednesday, September 25, from 8:30am-12noon.

Gary Torgow, the chairman of Huntington National Bank, will deliver a keynote address at The PuLSE Institute's conference on September 25

09/21/2024

Gary Torgow, a prominent business leader, who is the chairman of Huntington National Bank, the 20th largest bank in the nation, has been named the opening keynote speaker at this year’s conference on economic freedom organized and hosted by The PuLSE Institute, Detroit’s national and independent non-partisan anti-poverty think tank.

The poverty-themed conference will be held virtually this year on Wednesday, September 25, from 8:30 a.m.-12:00 pm and will feature solution-oriented keynote presentations and cutting-edge about how to address the salient issues of poverty and inequality in urban America including Detroit, one of the nation’s largest Black cities, and one of the most impoverished in the country.

Gary Torgow, a prominent business leader, who is the chairman of Huntington National Bank, the 20th largest bank in the nation, has been named the opening keynote speaker at this year’s conference …

09/21/2024

John Bodary, a veteran of the construction industry, who is the President and owner of Woods Construction and Interiors, a nationwide contractor will serve as one of the keynote speakers at this year’s conference on economic freedom organized and hosted by The PuLSE Institute, Detroit’s national and independent non-partisan anti-poverty think tank.

The poverty-themed national conference will be held virtually this year on Wednesday, September 25, from 8:30 a.m.-12:00 pm and will feature solution-oriented keynote presentations and cutting-edge about how to address the salient issues of poverty and inequality in urban America including Detroit, one of the nation’s largest Black cities, and one of the most impoverished in the country.

The September gathering is the institute’s annual racial and economic justice conference for policy makers, scholars, industry captains and community advocates working towards creating an ethical economy that guarantees equality for all.

The theme for the 2024 conference “Economic Security and Justice for All: An Inclusive Mandate for Closing America’s Racial Wealth Gap,” will examine the state of the economy including the nation’s housing crisis, the state of small business as well as discuss how corporate America must respond to the needs of underserved communities and the need to push for meaningful racial diversity and inclusion in business.

John Bodary, a veteran of the construction industry, who is the President and owner of Woods Construction and Interiors, a nationwide contractor will serve as one of the keynote speakers at this ye…

09/21/2024

Karen Weaver, who was elected mayor of Flint in 2015 during the height of the city’s international lead water scandal, will serve as one of the keynote speakers at this year’s conference on economi…

07/29/2023

Our executive dean Bankole Thompson named to the National Board of the historic Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the signature civil rights organization founded by Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

07/18/2023

The Atlanta-based historic Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the signature civil rights organization, which played a massive role during the Civil Rights Movement, and founded in 1957 at Ebenezer Baptist Church by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who served as its first president, has recently tapped Bankole Thompson, the nationally acclaimed Detroit journalist, public intellectual, and racial justice champion to be a member of its National Board of Directors.

The selection of a leading Black journalist whose work on the political and cultural landscape over the years has been lauded for its clarity, consistence, tenacity and boldness in championing issues of poverty and racial inequality, to help guide the flagship organization that embodies Dr. King’s enduring legacy, comes amid the current national reckoning on racial justice.

The SCLC’s historic work brought prominence to the civil rights struggle and laid the foundation for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Thompson was nominated by SCLC national board chairman Reverend Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr., an elder statesman of the Civil Rights Movement, and one of the last remaining and most trusted lieutenants of King.

A major authority on nonviolence who served as the National Coordinator of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, LaFayette, has long admired Bankole Thompson’s work as a courageous voice for racial and economic justice in the world of the media. The two worked together in the past including when LaFayette would visit Detroit to participate in events that were hosted by the journalist.

LaFayette who has described Thompson as a “remarkable person with many talents and powerful passion,” believes that his background and considerable impact as a journalist and a widely respected voice for fairness, equity and inclusion will bring needed diversity to the board. That Thompson’s addition to the board will tremendously help the organization at a time when many of the nation’s leading institutions including civil and human rights organizations are being challenged to use creative and innovative strategies to fight for racial equality in the modern era.

PuLSE News- The Atlanta-based historic Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the signature civil rights organization, which played a massive role during the Civil Rights Movement, and founded i…

06/23/2023

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01/26/2023

For years the nationally renowned Detroit-based Black journalist and cultural critic Bankole Thompson, whose work is known for probing uncomfortable issues of race, freedom and justice, has challenged business leaders to be conscientious and join the fight against economic inequality. Known for pricking the conscience of the powerful, Thompson, has insisted that major corporations should not only be concerned about their bottom line but about the endemic crisis of poverty that has made cities like Detroit ground zero of the urban crisis.

For example, in a keynote lecture he delivered last year for Brown University 2022 Black History Month Program led by Brown President Christina Paxson, Thompson, spoke on the theme “Race and Democracy in the Era of Black Lives Matter: Why Major Institutions Must Address the Fierce Urgency of Racial Justice.” In the keynote, which touched on the state of our democracy, he called on corporations to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice while challenging Ivy League schools like Brown to be examples of racial equity in the nation.

Now his definitive book, Fiery Conscience: A Treatise on Two Decades of the Impactful Journalism of Bankole Thompson, which captures his more than two decades of speaking truth to power and will be released later in 2023, is receiving praise from prominent business leaders across the spectrum of the corporate world in metro Detroit who have closely followed his work as a thought leader over the years.

For years the nationally renowned Detroit-based Black journalist and cultural critic Bankole Thompson, whose work is known for probing uncomfortable issues of race, freedom and justice, has challen…