Dear Mr. Obama,

I am a Lecturer at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, but I write to you as a loyal supporter, proud Illinoisan, and common citizen, so I am sparing you the formal university stationary.

I am writing to ask you to consider putting your Presidential Library in southern Illinois. The main reason I ask is that we need it, as we have a very rich history, some lakes and some vineyards, but very little else to attract visitors.

From your perspective, however, there are a number of good reasons to do this, and I would be happy to present them to you if I could. First, good, beautiful, and cheap land is available in abundance, and you could use as much of it as you need at a good price. Second, you could give a boost to an area with a rich cultural heritage and an intense history, especially for African Americans, an area which includes Cairo, Mounds and East St. Louis, to name a few. You could avoid Chicago politics, and the dilemma of which area to place it in within a large city that has more than enough to offer everyone anyway, but rather, reconnect with a group of loyal supporters (including myself) who have believed in you from the beginning.

If you choose to consider this offer, I would like to present you our case, and, if it comes to fruition, I would like to be part of its realization. If you choose not to, however, I would thank you anyway for reading this proposal. We remain proud of you, and send you greetings from “the Land of Obama”.

Sincerely,
Thomas Leverett