Cory Booker Session Revisited

Newark Mayor, Cory Booker, came to Memphis to speak before a sell out crowd of 850 people on Friday the October 17th, 2008. It was a fantastic event organized by the Leadership Academy (http://www.leadershipacademy.org) -- inspirational, educational, and entertaining. I had the chance to meet Cory briefly in advance. He is very accessible, down to earth, and sharp guy.

Cory is very serious about positive community change . . . For instance to raise awareness that citizens and leaders in the community should not be tolerant of crime and blight, he lived in public housing projects in Newark's Central Ward and organized tenants there to fight for improved conditions. In November 2006 to support change on Newark's south side, Cory left the projects for an apartment in an area described as "a drug- and gang-plagued neighborhood of boarded-up houses and empty lots." He means business when he is looking to make changes in the community. (See full Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker)

A central theme that I'll take away from meeting Cory is the notion of being intolerant -- we tolerate crime and drugs in certain parts of America's cities; we tolerate of poor education in some of our public schools; etc. We should not tolerate these problems. We need to be intolerant and make changes.

If you get a chance to meet Cory or hear him speak, do it.

Picture: Cory Booker and Eric Mathews