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The African American narrative is a journey marked by placemaking, a passage through migration, settlement, displacement, segregation, and, ultimately, hope. Jacob Lawrence’s 1941 series The Migration of the Negro captures the raw yearning for a better life, the disillusionment, adversity, and, at times, triumphant outcomes that define this movement. In that constant motion, cultures are born and traditions are forged, even as some things are lost.
Samir and I are also products of movement and placemaking. My journey began with a life-altering move from Lagos, Nigeria, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. In our new home, music became the conduit for the cultures we were proud to share. Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti’s “Zombie” protested Nigeria’s military regime, while Tupac Shakur’s “Dear Mama” offered solace and a new lens on my mother’s sacrifices as a single parent.
Our path continued when we left our corporate jobs in 2018 and opened Esusu’s first office in Harlem, New York. That 200-square-foot room grounded us in the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, from James Baldwin to Langston Hughes. Harlem is where Esusu took root, and it will always be home.
As Esusu’s focus evolved to center on housing, I found myself reflecting on Lawrence’s subjects who migrated to cities like Detroit, Minneapolis, New York, and Chicago. Their audacious aspirations, the communities they built, and the possibilities they insisted upon now sit at the core of Esusu’s mission.
Amid wealth inequality and erasure, the Black experience continues to expand spaces where music, art, dance, and film thrive, creating what some call “representation currency” to bring more seats to the table. Artists like Elizabeth Catlett, Kerry James Marshall, Kehinde Wiley, and Nina Simone echo Ralph Ellison’s insight: invisibility is not an absence of existence, but the refusal of others to truly see.
Yet the racial wealth gap endures. Recent analysis from the Brookings Institution highlights that Black households hold only a fraction of the wealth of white households. Homeownership, a key driver of wealth, follows the same pattern, with roughly 44 percent of Black individuals owning homes compared to nearly 73 percent of white individuals.
Esusu exists to help change that reality. To date, our data show that Esusu has helped create more than 107,000 new credit scores, unlocking over $21.9 billion in capital for renters. Positive outcomes include preventing 8,000-plus evictions, supporting access to over 33,000 mortgages totaling more than $14 billion, and enabling more than 134,000 auto loans.
In the words of Albert Camus, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” Esusu’s act of rebellion is to give voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless, and to work for a world where Black financial freedom and placemaking are not exceptions, but expectations.