The Boss: To Believe Despite the Odds
December 27, 2009 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
MY mother had my sister at 15 and me at 17. She raised us by herself when my father went to jail. We lived in the South Bronx. People assumed she’d never be able to achieve in life and neither would we. But my mother never stopped going to school. She took us with her to her classes at Hunter College.
SHEENA WRIGHT
Chief executive, the Abyssinian Development Corporation, Manhattan
AGE 39
LIVES IN A Harlem Brownstone
LAST VACATION Jamaica
In the 1970s, she fought for financial aid for college students in need. People would come to our house and make banners to protest one thing or another. When she got arrested, I saw her on the news. Her example made me believe that I could achieve what I set out to do. I also thought that my life should be about service.
My mother sent my sister and me to the North Bronx for middle school because she was not satisfied with the school in the South Bronx. We commuted an hour and a half each way.
I joined a tennis program in the neighborhood sponsored by Coca-Cola and was featured on Phil Donahue’s show. An …
Read the original article at NYTimes
