Visitors to a quiet Neyland Stadium on Thursday afternoon would scarcely have guessed that a plot was being fostered there for the good of the entire Volunteer State — a plot that began with a license plate.
On February 1, 2024, Mayor Glenn Jacobs and UT President Randy Boyd joined a host of state and municipal officials, business executives, entrepreneurs, professional athletes, and leaders of the Baker school for a celebration of In the Black – Knoxville.
The event was both a celebration of Tennessee as a place where fiscal stability enables innovation and flourishing for all, and a charge to carry that legacy forward to generations to come.
In a series of panel discussions, millennial-aged leaders were encouraged to political action at local, municipal, and state levels, with a positive vision for responsible government and stewardship.
Panelists issued a summons to service and a call to counteract the dysfunctions and pettiness of partisanship in Washington.
“The future isn’t set in stone,” Mayor Jacobs said in an address to the group. “We get to decide what it is. We can change our little corner of the world, and if enough people do that, the world can change.” President Boyd echoed the Mayor, adding that “it is incumbent upon those who have achieved some level of success to steward those opportunities for those who come after.”
We hosted the gathering to continue celebrating its launch of the In the Black specialty license plate. Since the plate’s launch in late 2022, it has quickly become one of the top 5 best-selling specialty plates in the state, now on over 25,000 cars.
Proceeds from the sale of the plate support the foundation’s mission to educate and activate millennials, who will be the first generation to suffer the consequences of the unprecedented and runaway 32 trillion-dollar national debt.
Our founder, Mayor Weston Wamp, praised the University and its commitment to volunteerism, calling his alma mater “the ideal place for a gathering to call those who’ve received so much to give themselves away in public service.”
