YOUR TURN: “Liberty Summit: The Solution to Our State’s Problems in One Room?” by Phil Noble

There are those of us who believe that we in South Carolina have within our borders all the resources we need to solve virtually any problem our state faces. Last week, all the people we need to make it happen were assembled in one big room at one time. It was the Liberty Fellowship Summit in Columbia.

Let me explain. The Liberty Fellows program was started by Hayne and Anna Kate Hipp of Greenville, and it is a truly visionary project. It identifies emerging leaders in our state, helps them look at our problems in new and different ways, and then guides them to take positive steps to make the changes we so desperately need. The project is affiliated with the Aspen Institute and its larger global leadership programs. In this state, we are truly blessed to have people such as the Hipps with the vision, resources and commitment to start and run such a project, as well as the universal respect required to assemble such a group.

Each year since 2004, about 20 individuals ages 30 to 45 have been chosen as Liberty Fellows and mentored by senior advisers, older blue-chip leaders in the state. The Fellows go through a two-year long series of seminars, briefings and discussions, and then each Fellow develops their own special project to tackle a specific problem. Their work has begun to make a real difference with some of the toughest issue facing our state — in education, health care, race relations, environmental protection, government reform and a host of other important issues.

Last Wednesday, Liberty Fellows held their second annual summit at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. The event brought together not only the Fellows and their mentors, but also several hundred others from around the state and beyond. The theme was Transcending Tribalism — getting beyond the self-imposed barriers of geography, race, sex, politics, religion, etc., that keep us isolated in our own silos or tribes and prevent us from solving the common problems of our state. Clearly there has been no greater plague on our state throughout its history than these artificial divisions that have held us back.

In addition to the South Carolina leaders, the summit brought some of the best and the brightest from around the county to help grapple with these tough issues. Among them were: Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute and award-winning author of biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger and Albert Einstein; Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, one of the most respected and innovative governors in the country; Kim Smith, a founder of Teach for America; Anton Gunn, a former South Carolina state legislator and now Southern Regional Director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and others.

The Summit was not just about a few luminaries sitting up on a stage pontificating with a lot of pie-in-the-sky, thumb-sucker analysis. Instead, dozens of action groups spent three hours delving into the nitty gritty of tackling some of our state’s toughest problems. And most importantly, they developed detailed action plans with specific steps that we can begin to take today to turn things around.

One of the most notable features of the Summit was the absence of high-profile speechmaking by our state’s politicians; there was none. Those few elected officials who came joined in the work like everyone else without any special recognition or leadership role. And, that is as it should be. In the past, we have been too quick to abdicate our civic responsibility to the politicians — and, in turn, they have largely failed us and given us a broken government that has been corrupted by special interest politics and money.

Will this Liberty Summit result in big, immediate changes overnight? Of course not.  But something important is happening here: The people of our state are coming together on their own to try and solve our state’s problems with intelligence, vision and a commitment to hard work, and their efforts could have a profound long-term impact.

In the great room of Independence Hall in Philadelphia 224 years ago, our nation’s founding fathers proclaimed that “we the people” are the ones who must make the decisions about what kind of nation we want and then work together to make that future a reality.

There were no three-cornered hats or quill pens and inkwells in the room in Columbia last week, but there were a lot of smart and committed people determined to make South Carolina a new state, a better state — and they just might do it.

Phil Noble is a businessman in Charleston and President of the SC New Democrats, an independent reform group started by former Gov. Richard Riley. Contact Mr. Noble at phil@SCNewDemocrats.org or www.SCNewDemocrats.org.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the author are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CRESCENT: The Magazine.

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