The CEO of IMPACT Strategies, a political advocacy firm, and CNN Political Commentator, Angela Rye, visited Georgia State for the 36th Annual MLK Commemoration Ceremony on Thursday, Jan. 24. She spoke about the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dreams and how Georgia State students can make a change based on Dr. King Jr.’s principals.
Rye posed the question “where do we go from here?” To answer the question, Rye used one of Dr. King’s speeches “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” as an example.
“He even, in this speech discussed plans to demand businesses to use minority-owned vendors in a way to ensure that these businesses did not remain small because of a monopoly by white-owned businesses and vendors,” Rye said.
Rye said that she believes that Georgia State can start to invest in black-owned banks.
“This speech is something that we coined last year. Buy Black. Bank Black. Give Black,” Rye said. “And since Georgia State is a predominant minority institution, I know it can start right here at Georgia State University. Georgia State can put some of their resources in a black-owned bank. Georgia State can hire black vendors if there isn’t enough.”
The CNN political commentator also touched on a concerning topic that many students have been talking about at Georgia State: student-to-teacher ratio and teacher demographics.
“With a student body that is over 40 percent black, I know that we can get a faculty that is also over 40 percent black because Dr. King said, ‘If you respect my dollars [my tuition dollars], you must respect my person.’”
Rye not only focused on Georgia State she also touched on the African-American voter turnout rates in Atlanta.
“Atlanta is about 54 percent black. Sure, there was an increase in the 2018 midterm election, but there was a record low in the 2017 mayoral election. There was a 41 percent black voter turnout,” Rye said. “Imagine what will happen if black Atlanta really came out and vote and exercise its power.”
The CNN Commentator pointed out from a study that Atlanta is the top unequal city in America.
“A Bloomberg analysis shows Atlanta as being the most unequal large city in America. Dr. King’s home. The very antithesis of everything he stood for,” she said. “Economically, Georgia State University contributes approximately 1.5 billion dollars annually to this local economy.”
Rye asked the audience to think about what the population of black students at Georgia State, which is about 42 percent, could do with 1.5 billion dollars.
“Image what you could do with 1.5 billion dollars. You could change not only the black agenda for this area, but you could change it for the nation,” Rye said.
Rye ended with responding to the answer to the question she posed at the beginning of her speech “where do we go from here?” She said that the answer is right in our hands.
“It’s up to us to collectively decide what we want from our government. What are our expectations from corporations? What are the expectations of people who are in power? And it is up to us to make sure that we fight that fight until we get it,” Rye said.