Downtown Diversity Initiative ignites Black entrepreneurship for fifth year

At a brick and mortar clothing shop near Macon’s iconic H&H on Forsyth Street, Lonzo Hennessy sells colorful streetwear. His brand — Upper Echelon WRLD — can be found on the sweatpants and sweatshirts hanging on racks throughout his store. 

Hennessy has marketed his streetwear brand at pop-up shops and community events for the last four years, but after realizing how much he enjoyed face-to-face customer interactions, he knew he had to open a physical location.

“They get the clothes and they also get some of me as well,” he said of the rush he feels when interacting with customers.

Folks from NewTown Macon, Wells Fargo and the Macon-Middle Georgia Black Pages crowded inside Hennessy’s storefront  Jan. 9 to celebrate five up-and-coming Black entrepreneurs receiving $5,000 to kick-start or expand their businesses.

Hennessy was one of 25 Black entrepreneurs who participated in this year’s Downtown Diversity Initiative (DDI) from NewTown Macon and Macon-Middle Georgia’s Black Pages.

Wells Fargo sponsored the fifth year of this initiative in which Black entrepreneurs participated in six weeks of group training focused on business development, funding and finance. The training culminated in all participants pitching their new business plans. A committee of community and business winners selected five people to receive grants..

Nearly 170 Black entrepreneurs have gone through training and received $120,000 in grant funding to support their business development since the initiative’s inception in 2018. 

“Everything emanates from an idea,” Alex Habersham, publisher of the Macon-Middle Georgia Black Pages said, reflecting on how the downtown diversity initiative first took root. 

Macon lacked a Black entrepreneurial presence, despite its continued economic growth and development, he recalled. Habersham brought this concern to the late NewTown Macon CEO and President Josh Rogers, who offered his full support in developing an initiative to attract more Black businesses.

“He had the right heart,” Habersham said. “Without his heart, without his belief in being fair and his belief in diversity and his belief in giving everybody a chance, this would not have happened.” 

NewTown Macon has a strong focus on uplifting underserved groups by offering training opportunities and guiding folks through the loan process, Lauren Marshall, NewTown Macon’s vice president of community development, told folks at the DDI announcement event Thursday.

She shared a line Rogers used to say: “Fairer is faster when it comes to revitalization efforts.”

Training 

Every year, a cohort of entrepreneurs attends six two-and-a-half hour classes every other Saturday, covering topics such as financial statements, value propositions, marketing, investment and financial projections. 

One DDI winner, Alison Booker, founded Wonder Media — a multimedia production company — in February and decided to apply for the DDI on a whim after seeing a Facebook ad for the program. 

Booker learned how to keep her books, know who her customers are and how to set clear goals. While going through her DDI training, she was offered the opportunity to work on a documentary with Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful.

The classes are mainly taught by NewTown Macon’s Business Consultant Ricardo Cordew, but this year 11 different partners volunteered to help teach the cohort, including a professor from Mercer University and a representative from Wells Fargo. 

While deployed in Poland with the army, Rachel Solomon — a Macon native and Wesleyan College graduate — began thinking about how frequently minority-owned businesses do not have a functional marketing presence. So in January 2024 she launched her own digital advertising and marketing agency, TheRadiantPop

Solomon didn’t believe she would be accepted into the program —  she had a few clients and some previous freelance marketing experience  —  but applied for the DDI because she wanted to take her business to the next level. 

“I wanted to not only help more people, but also refine my skills,” she told The Melody.

Cordew’s training helped her step out of the freelancer mindset and think bigger, Solomon said. She stopped looking at her business as a side hustle and began considering the long-term growth of her business. 

Participating entrepreneurs end the class with a business plan, explained Cordew, and the confidence, community and connections to help them move forward.

He encouraged this year’s graduating entrepreneurs to become pillars within their community and advocate for others who will follow in their footsteps. 

Growth and continuing to work

Downtown Macon has seen an 89% increase in the number of Black-owned businesses, according to NewTown’s Marshall, with 53 Black-owned businesses currently operating downtown versus 28 in 2021.

“That is a community that is thriving and it’s how downtown really should be,” Wells Fargo Macon branch manager and DDI judge Pam Nichols said. “And it’s all due to small businesses that are the heartbeat of this community.”

Despite the notable growth of business development in downtown Macon in the past couple decades, there’s still a long way to go in achieving economic and financial equity, Marshall noted

“While downtown has seen an increase in Black businesses, this statistic is still not reflective of our Macon population, which is 54% Black,” she said. “So we have more work to do.”