The document discusses the importance of education and its relationship to prosperity, opportunity, and reducing poverty and incarceration rates. It quotes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech calling for justice and opportunity. It also quotes Booker T. Washington's "Democracy and Education" speech about the connected destiny of African Americans and all Americans regarding education and citizenship.

1. Dr. Louis L. Fletcher Director, Western Region Troy University

2. Anacostia: Southeast Washington, DC

3. Education is the Investment Prosperity is the Dividend

4. America’s Promissory Note But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I Have a Dream (1963)

5. Due Diligence “caveat emptor” …Let the Buyer Beware

8. The New Poor Headline: Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs “We have a work-based safety net without any work,” said Timothy M. Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “People with more education and skills will probably figure something out once the economy picks up. It’s the ones with less education and skills: that’s the new poor.” New York Times February 21, 2010

9. Crime Really Does Not Pay Incarceration has an inverse relationship to educational attainment Incarceration Educational Attainment

10. Education is the Investment Prosperity is the Dividend

11. Learn, Earn, Pay It Forward!

12. Democracy and Education ... My friends, we are one in this country. The question of the highest citizenship and the complete education of all concerns nearly ten million of my own people and over sixty million of yours. We rise as you rise; when we fall you fall. When you are strong we are strong; when we are weak you are weak. There is no power than can separate our destiny. Booker T. WashingtonDemocracy and Education 1896

13. Education is the Investment Prosperity is the Dividend

14. Learn, Earn, Pay It Forward!