ABOUT US
The reSURGEnce Mission
The reSURGEnce movement hosts global business forums and conferences that bring together Black businesses, churches, and community not-for-profits and link them with resources, institutions, governments, and corporations that will facilitate funding, procurement, sales and marketing, trade, training, and a wide range of services and business exchange. reSURGEnce is a movement that fuels a renewed flame for the development and growth of Black businesses around the world.
Why We Must Act Now
“Blacks continue to lag behind other races in all things economic. For Blacks in America and the Black world, the economic needle is barely moving. Viewed from a governmental and socio-economic perspective, it looks like Blacks are included, society often acts like they are included, and speaks like they are included – but when you look at the data and carefully evaluate the numbers, it is glaring that Blacks are not equally included and lag far behind other races in all things economic.
-Rev, Dennis Dillon, Publisher, The New York Christian Times
What We Do
The reSURGEnce movement hosts conferences and informational sessions that offer solutions and help to provide key areas of access: access to funding and capital, access to investment options and opportunities, access to markets and business growth opportunities, access to franchise and dealer opportunities, access to government and corporate contracts, and access to global partnerships and an Africa-America business exchange. This exchange initiative will engage African businesses, government and clergy participating in these conferences in America and American counterparts traveling to similar conferences in Africa.
Advocacy and Leadership
Over the past 30 years, The New York Christian Times has been a leading voice, an effective advocate and a transformative leader on the path to economic growth and business development in Black and Brown communities. As architects of “House New York / Houses for You” – one of the nation’s largest faith-based homeownership movements at the time, The Black Church Means Business Conference, The Economic Revival Initiative, The New York Black Business Clinics, and the Financial Literacy Campaign, our organization has worked with thousands of churches and hundreds of banks and U.S corporations to bring change and opportunities to marginalized communities in the New York region and other parts of the country. Corporations such as Macy’s, McDonald’s, Polo, Ralph Lauren and Citibank have credited our organization for assisting in the growth of their supplier diversity programs and community reinvestment efforts.
Unfortunately, over the past ten years, we have seen a stagnation in the growth of Black businesses in the New York tri-state area. SBA guaranteed loans to Black businesses are down from what was already the lowest level of all ethnic and niche categories. The average Black-owned business has gross annual revenue of a mere $68,000 compared with approximately $12 million for New York State firms, and Blacks account for only 3.5% of New York City’s firms yet represent some 26% of the population. The COVID-19 pandemic has only widened this gap, and the global unrest that arose from the murder of George Floyd and other innocent Blacks is a painful revelation of the huge disparities that Blacks face in America.
Participants at reSURGEnce Conference at the historic Riverside Church in New York City. (L-R) Rev. Dennis Dillion, President/Publisher, The New York Christian Times; Dr. Nevers Mumba, former Vice President of Zambia and Senior Advisor to Zambia’s President; actor and bestselling author Hill Haper; Rev. Evelyn Manns, Conference Co-Convener; Attorney Susan Mukanganyama, Global Co-Chair; Dr. George Fraser, New York Times bestselling author and President, Fraser Nation, and Rev. Peter Kegode, Global Co-Chair
The reSURGEnce Conference and The New York Times Christian Footprint
