Perhaps missed, in the excitement of student loan relief in billionaire venture capitalist Robert Smith’s gift to the men of Morehouse, was his words, “we are enough to take care of our community”. And he is right. This is not to excuse the horrors of slavery and the subsequent terror and racial apartheid which only ended legally in the 1960’s. But it is to say more who have done better and succeeded despite the odds, can and should do more to help resolve some of the issues that continue to plague our community.

No billionaire’s cannot fix roads, or make cities beautify our community. But some can do what Mr. Smith did, pay off some debt, invest in black owned startups, invest in real estate in black communities to benefit the communities, and make owners out of renters. We’re not talking about handouts. We’re talking about true investments in people and ideas. We’re talking about applying analytics, tracking what works and scrapping what doesn’t.

After 400 years the cycle is up. Like Ghana says this is the year of return, so our efforts should be local, national, and global. Challenge accepted. Let’s go.