When the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation tweaks its strategy next year to add the $37 billion that Warren Buffet asked them to spend for him, I have a suggestion.
Stop for a moment and take a look at the opportunity you have in the county you live in. Martin Luther King Jr. County has almost every racial group in the world. It is a small microcosm of the world we live in.
It is named after Dr, Martin Luther King Jr., the foremost civil and human rights leader of the last 100 years. Use the name and the legacy of King as a springboard for the things you want to do nationally and internationally.
Education is a major focus of the foundation. So, let us solve the educational problems of Martin Luther King County first and use what we learn here to transform schools around the nation.
Let's use the name and legacy of King and the resources of the foundation to invite the best minds in education to MLK County so they can get busy.
We can focus our health initiatives on making our county a place where diseases are attacked and defeated, where new cures are found for modern scourges and the best doctors come to learn how to add a social conscience to their knowledge of medicine.
Why not create the think tanks in Martin Luther King Jr. County and create the solutions to the problems of this nation away from the hustle and bustle of the larger urban centers?
To solve problems you must have more than a good intent. You need something to rally people emotionally and spiritually and create a place where failure is not an option and success is expected.
Seattle has been voted the most educated city in the nation and it has so far avoided the catastrophic natural disasters that have devastated other parts of the country. For years the mystic writers and new age thinkers have come here to work.
It is no accident that Octavia Butler, August Wilson, James Washington Jr. and Jacob Lawrence decided to make Seattle their home in the latter parts of their lives.
We have some of the finest writers and musicians in the world living here, and many more would be here if they knew about the place. We can use the mystic nature of the region, the power of Martin Luther King's vision and passion and the resources of the Gates Foundation to create something extraordinary.
Bring the best and brightest to Seattle and MLK County and enhance one of the best medical infrastructures in the nation by importing the best doctors and medical researchers. Bring the doctors and nurses from Africa and Asia and train them here in an environment free from poverty and pain.
We can create the type of America that King talked about in the county that bears his name: all the pieces are already in place.
As the Middle East explodes with Jews, Muslims and Christians killing each other, can we bring them together in MLK County? Can we make a difference here?
We have some of the finest United States Senators, the most liberal Congressman in America, a mayor who is dedicated to social Justice and a King County executive who is a Baptist minister, like Martin Luther King Jr., and is steeped in the history of the Civil Rights movement.
We have a racially mixed population with people who are educated and sophisticated and capable of representing and speaking for every group. Almost every religion on Earth is practiced in our county.
As a foundation, how much more do you need?
If not us, who? If not now, when? If not here in Martin Luther King Jr. County, where?
Have a thought or two to share with Charlie James? Write him at the address or e-dress listed below.
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