May 23, 2025
Black Detroit leaders are honoring the legacy of historic Black business districts
Black Leaders Detroit is leading a 1,645-mile ride from Tulsa’s Black Wall Street to New York City’s Wall Street, honoring the legacy of historic Black business districts while raising funds to support Black entrepreneurs.
“We’re riding from Black Wall Street in honor of the legacy of Greenwood,” Dwan Dandridge, founder and CEO of Black Leaders Detroit, told BridgeDetroit. “And we’re going to Wall Street because it’s another place where Black people had a huge hand in creating the wealth… but also not being able to benefit from the wealth that the labor created.”
The fifth annual “Ride for Equity” kicks off May 31, making stops in Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania before wrapping up around July 4 on Wall Street, America’s financial epicenter. The ride raises awareness for Black Leaders Detroit’s mission to fund Black-owned businesses, honoring the legacy of Detroit’s historic Paradise Valley and Black Bottom neighborhoods, which were demolished in the 1960s to build I-375, displacing tens of thousands of Black residents.
This year’s Ride for Equity pays tribute to Black Wall Street, the thriving Black business hub established in the early 1900s in Tulsa’s Greenwood District. That town’s prosperity was violently disrupted on May 31, 1921, when white mobs looted and burned homes and businesses, devastating the community that is still trying to rebuild today.
Now a global financial center, Wall Street was once the location of New York’s slave auctions. Major institutions like JPMorgan Chase and New York Life have documented ties to slavery, having profited by using enslaved people as collateral and insuring them as property.
Through its annual Ride for Equity, Black Leaders Detroit organizes a long-distance bike ride alongside citywide events designed to unite communities in meaningful dialogue, reflection, and collective action for lasting change.
“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.
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