I’m one of those people who watches both the State of the Union Address and the response which comes after it. It’s usually a long, boring speech followed by a shorter, boring speech. I’m a nerd, what can I say. (There actually wasn’t a State of the Union this year–which violated the Constitution,🤯 but that’s for another time.) However, we did have a Joint Session of Congress. So I expected that this year would be no different. I listened. The President’s comments were pretty standard. The response was different.

It was given by Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina who serves on the Committee on Finance, the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. He’s also the only Black Republican in the Senate. It was one of the shorter responses. He didn’t speak in the standard platitudes. No “pie in the sky.” He sounded more like John Kennedy and MKL than what I call a Santa Claus speech. I wanted to hear/read more. He was on some radio programs the following morning and I found several of his policy papers on line. I also found his book Opportunity Knocks.

This is a relatively short book (not one of my 750-page tomes) that combines his memoir with his mission. Adversity is common in North Charleston, South Carolina, where Scott grew up with a single mother–but a mother who believed in perseverance not handouts, and a family that believes that education was the way up. Hard work and some wonderful mentors helped him on his way. He became an entrepreneur who quickly realized that he also was called to help his community, and first ran for County Council in 1995. Now in the U.S. Senate, one piece of legislation he’s extremely proud of is “opportunity zones” which provide tax incentives for companies that invest in low-income urban areas. In the past four years those opportunity zones have made important changes throughout the country by starting good jobs in formerly distressed areas.

Senator Scott also discusses his own thoughts on racism and racial inequality. He’s had to deal with it all too often–even sometimes in the United States Capital itself. He believes that the country really has come a long way, but still has things which we need to come together to change. One was the passage of his First Step Program of prison reform, and hopefully he will be able to get more Congressmen and Senators aboard to pass his police reform package.

He ends the book with his thoughts for the future. His goal for 2030 is education. It must be revamped for the rest of the 21st century or, he believes (and I must agree!!!) that the US will be lagging badly as the gig economy soars. As a young man, Senator Scott’s goal was to positively impact on 1 Billion people in his lifetime. I think he’s well on his way.