To Believe Despite the Odds

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Published: December 26, 2009

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.

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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 executive with the program suggested that I go to the George School, a private school near Philadelphia. My sister and I both got full scholarships.

I skipped a couple of grades in school and enrolled inColumbia University at age 16 to study history and sociology. I helped found the Pan African House on campus and was also an executive of the Black Students’ Organization. One year, we protested over Columbia’s investing in organizations in South Africa.

While in college, I worked part time at The New York Times and, after graduation, worked in its Washington bureau for a year. Many of my classmates had gone to law school, however, and I decided to follow the herd.

Law school at Columbia allowed me to hone my critical-thinking skills and taught me about corporate law. It also opened my eyes to economic empowerment issues. I see economic empowerment as the next phase of the civil rights movement — giving neighborhoods equal access to capital, which will allow them to develop a strong economic base.

One summer, I worked for the Legal Aid Society, and another summer, for a New York law firm. When I got my law degree, I joined the law firm, which had only a handful of women as associates and a couple of female partners out of about 75. I was the second black woman hired.

I learned a lot about business and negotiating complex transactions during the five years I worked there, but I realized that I wanted to use my skills for the betterment of my community someday. I moved to another law firm and learned more about private equityand other resources that businesses could use to grow and develop.

Next I worked at a start-up and saw firsthand a minority company’s challenges in raising capital. In the 1990s, Harlem underwent a gentrification, and in 2002, the Abyssinian Development Corporation hired me as chief operating officer to help develop the community further. I was promoted to C.E.O. later that year.

We’ve completed numerous development projects, providing housing and educational and other services. In 2004, we helped more than 200 families living in the Ennis Francis Houses. Once the government contract expired, the building could have been sold to a private contractor for the market rate. But the entire housing project was terribly rundown. There was so much mold and mildew that mushrooms were growing out of carpets and the walls looked as if they were covered in fur. The sewage line had collapsed. We bought the building and totally rehabilitated it.

Harlem can teach other cities that if they identify their strengths and build on them, they can achieve their goals. You don’t need a million dollars and a lot of external things. If you wait for them, you may never get to where you want to be.

As told to Patricia R. Olsen