Black Leaders Detroit to embark on ‘Ride for Equity’ to uplift once-thriving business districts

A black and white photo of Paradise Valley is prominently displayed inside the Newlab headquarters of Black Leaders Detroit, depicting a bustling 1940s Hastings Avenue in the historic Detroit entertainment district.

Paradise Valley and the neighboring Black Bottom neighborhood were destroyed in the 1960s to make room for I-375, displacing tens of thousands of mostly Black Detroiters. Today, the nonprofit is paying tribute to those once-thriving communities through its mission of financially supporting Black businesses in the city and an upcoming event that will honor another famous Black business district. 

Black Leaders Detroit is kicking off its fifth annual Ride for Equity on May 31 with a new and much longer route–a 1,645-mile cycling journey from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to New York City next month. The ride will honor Black Wall Street, a Black business mecca created at the turn of the 20th century in Tulsa’s Greenwood District. The prosperous community was cut short when mobs of white residents rampaged through on May 31, 1921, looting and burning businesses and homes. The ride will begin in Tulsa, making stops in Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania before ending around July 4 on Wall Street in New York, the country’s largest financial center.

Black Leaders Detroit Founder and CEO Dwan Dandridge told BridgeDetroit that the organization decided on the Oklahoma-York route this year to examine how Black entrepreneurs in the past built wealth and then had it stripped away in the most horrific ways. 

“We’re riding from Black Wall Street in honor of the legacy of Greenwood,” he said. “And we’re going to Wall Street because it’s another place where Black people had a huge hand in creating the wealth and giving the foundation of Wall Street, but also not being able to benefit from the wealth that the labor created.” 

Wall Street is known as the center of global finance today but it has a dark history. In the 1700s, Wall Street was the location of New York City’s slave market, trafficking thousands of men, women and children. Black people who were forced into the Wall Street slave market contributed to the prosperity of financial institutions like Aetna, New York Life and JPMorgan Chase. Banks helped finance southern plantations, insured slaves as property and used slaves as collateral for loans, reported WNYC. 

The multi-state trip is a departure from the organization’s usual route from Detroit to Mackinaw City, which was always held a week before the Mackinac Policy Conference. While this year’s route won’t start in Detroit, the organization will host Ride for Equity Detroit on May 17, where bikers will ride from Newlab to Belle Isle. Registration is $25. 

For the multi-state ride, cyclists can register at ride4equity.org to travel individually, join a team, or create one. Prices for the event vary: The kickoff in Tulsa is $35, while a week of biking part of the route will cost $300, and the full trip is $1,200. A virtual option is also available for people who cannot physically ride. Registration fees will go toward funding for Black entrepreneurs in Detroit.

Osborne Celestain and his Oklahoma-based organization The Community Light will be helping Black Leaders Detroit with the Tulsa kickoff. Celestain said he and Dandridge met last year and connected over their love of biking. The Community Light hosts an annual bike ride called Ride to Remember Black Wall Street. An avid cycler, Celestain has signed up for the full 35-day ride.

“There’s gonna be a lot of great discussions, I’m gonna make some friends,” he said. “There’s going to be some challenges that’s going to pop up that you’re not going to expect when you do something like this, and that’s when you see who you are. It’s how you approach each day of the unknown and I’m looking forward to that.” 

‘For Black Detroiters, by Black Detroiters’ 

Dandridge founded Black Leaders Detroit in 2019 as an avenue for Black entrepreneurs to access capital. While Detroit’s tech ecosystem is the second-fastest growing in the world after Dubai, Black and brown people still face significant hurdles when starting their businesses, including limited access to entrepreneurship training programs and capital. Black founders in the U.S. raised 0.48% of all venture dollars allocated in 2023, equating to around $661 million out of $136 billion, according to technology news outlet Tech Crunch.

As an entrepreneur, Dandridge faced challenges in securing adequate project funding. He was co-owner of residential construction company Integrity Contractors Inc., and before that, he ran Dwan’s Home Improvement.

Dandridge said he was seeking $1 million for a project involving the purchase and renovation of 10 houses within the same neighborhood or block in Detroit, but investors only offered him a revolving line of credit for $250,000. 

“They were very nice and generous people, but they were not from Detroit and they were white,” Dandridge said. “I shelved that idea and said we needed a pot of money for Black Detroiters that’s being run by Black Detroiters. Thus, I started working on Black Leaders Detroit.” 

Black Leaders Detroit has granted no-interest loans to hundreds of city businesses, such as the restaurant The Kitchen by Cooking with Que and the charcuterie shop Hosted Detroit, which recently opened in Midtown. As of April 1, the organization distributed $4.2 million to Detroit entrepreneurs, according to its website.

Biking for change

Dandridge began the first Ride for Equity in 2021 to raise awareness of Black Leaders Detroit. He originally wanted to confine the ride to Detroit, but his 14-year-old son suggested a bike ride from Detroit to Mackinaw City. 

“We did that ride over the course of seven days in the past, so we’d take off on a Sunday and land there on a Saturday. It’s a 377-mile bike ride,” Dandridge said. 

Another component of the annual ride is the “Speak for Yourself” events, where Black Leaders Detroit hosts community conversations in the cities that the group bikes through. This year, the organization will host events in Tulsa, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, State College, Pennsylvania and New York City. Black Leaders Detroit has been promoting those events through local partners and social media, Dandridge said. 

“We invite people to come out and have a conversation about unity, race, equity, and what it means to be good neighbors to each other despite our differences,” Dandridge said. 

Doug Bitonti Stewart, executive director of the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, said the community engagement events are one of the most impactful parts of Ride for Equity. He’s part of an ally council of metro Detroit organizations that support Black Leaders Detroit’s mission. Bitonti Stewart has been biking in the rides since the beginning. He plans to bike at least 20 days of this year’s ride. 

“In these ‘Speak for Yourself’ sessions, real people are talking to each other and Dwan creates a courageous space,” Bitonti Stewart said. “He pulls stories out of people so they can hear other people’s stories. It’s amazing.” 

Dandridge said the events are a reminder that Black people face a long road ahead when it comes to equity in entrepreneurship and elsewhere. 

“The road to equity is definitely going to be hard and challenging and sometimes it’s gonna be healing, but if we’re gonna get there, it’s going be us doing it together,” he said.