A Commitment for Community Impact: Dr. Emad Rahim & Cjala Surratt

PICTURED ABOVE: Dr. Emad Rahim and Cjala Surratt in the Black Citizens Brigade

Dr. Emad Rahim and Cjala Surratt spent about three years living in Chicago before deciding to return home to Central New York in 2014. Easier commutes, a lower cost of living and good schools helped lure them back to Syracuse, where they met, married and started their professional and civic lives.

Dr. Rahim, a former Community Foundation board of directors member and graduate of Syracuse’s Fowler High School, operates the Syracuse Surge Accelerator at The Tech Garden, which is part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship portfolio of CenterState CEO. Surratt, a member of our Black Equity & Excellence Fund (BE&E) advisory council, graduated from Syracuse’s Nottingham High School. A longtime advocate for the arts, she now owns the downtown Syracuse vintage store Black Citizens Brigade.

The couple supports our BE&E Fund for the same reason they decided to return to Syracuse from Chicago — they want to support the community that nurtured and provided opportunities for them to create fulfilling lives. And they want to create conditions that offer the same opportunities for others.

Dr. Rahim, who joined our board of directors in 2017, said that serving as a board member “allowed me to participate and have a voice. I came on with several other minority leaders and had the opportunity to help influence important programs and policy decisions on lead, literacy and black equity.”

Surratt joined our BE&E advisory council in February 2024. The council “is participatory,” she said. “It has people in the room, including previous grants recipients, helping make the decisions.” Black Artist Collective, which Surratt co-founded, was the recipient of grants from the BE&E Fund prior to her joining the council.

The national reckoning over racial inequity that followed George Floyd’s May 2020 murder created a pivotal moment, Surratt said. “What I saw was a desire for systemic change and societal change. How do we put money into the hands of people who are seeking it?”

Our commitment to funding Black-led community-based projects through the BE&E Fund gives her hope that organizations will continue to be held accountable to their commitments to reverse historic inequity and provide opportunities for historically underrepresented and underfunded communities to thrive. “We can see the real impact the fund has had and continues to have on our community through measurable metrics and outcomes,” she said.

“It’s important that people of color see themselves in those board and committee positions and not pushed in the corner,” Dr. Rahim added. “They need to be part of the community conversation.”

The couple, who have two daughters, have deep connections to community organizations. Surratt has played roles with a number of organizations including the Urban Video Project, Light Work photography center, the Everson Museum of Art, Community Folk Art Center and Redhouse Arts Center. Dr. Rahim has served on the boards of Good Life Philanthropic Foundation, Upstate Minority Economic Alliance, Onondaga Community College Scholarship Foundation, Syracuse Model Neighborhood Corporation and others.

The busy couple is grateful for the ways the Syracuse region allows them to pursue interconnected professional, civic and philanthropic interests.

“We feel it’s important for us to give back to this community that gave us so much love and support,” Surratt said. “And we need to leave the door open and leave a brick in the doorway to make room for our youth to enter.”

And, Dr. Rahim added, “by partnering with the Community Foundation through board service and support of its initiatives, we know we can make a difference here and contribute to meaningful impact.”

This year, our Black Equity & Excellence Fund distributed 31 grants totaling $238,200 to Black-led organizations.