Meet Dr. Selma K. Bartholomew

We recently connected with Dr. Selma K. Bartholomew and have shared our conversation below.

Dr. Selma K. , thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

Did you know, that I can make the sunrise? Without an alarm clock and while my sister, brothers and the many cousins slept, I would hurry out of bed and navigate the chairs and small wooden table to find her sitting on the veranda in the dark. I would make my way next to with excitement. Sit quietly and wait. As the sun rose—my grandmother Ada with a gentle voice would say “Look, the sun rose for you”. After leaving Grenada and coming to New York, I held onto to that feeling and started my day with the secret knowledge that I could make the sun rise. It was not until taking science class in high school that I learned the laws of nature, but you should know that I still believe in my heart the sun rises everyday for me. My optimism came from a woman who had seen no shortage of adversity but yet she poured love into me.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Stepping into the NYC Mayor’s race was not an easy decision. I understood the climate and the culture of passive violence that fuels the physical violence we see across our nation. Still, I stepped onto the field—and I’ve been David in a dress, fighting two Goliaths: money and disillusionment. My surefootedness did not happen overnight; it was forged through a journey that the word adversity will never—seriously never—be able to capture.

Allow me to take you back. In the middle of the 2008 recession, like so many Americans, I found myself laid off, cut back, and without a government bailout. There I was—a single mom—facing every worry imaginable and clinging to the narrative society feeds us about struggle: find a secure job, a place to hide, maybe even for a lifetime. Then, as if job insecurity wasn’t enough, my landlord gave me notice to move, and my father passed away suddenly and tragically. In that moment, I realized there was no table waiting for me in this world. Surrounded by boxes, I wrote my business plan. The day I made my first sale, I took a taxi back to the block where I grew up, met my siblings, and made arrangements for my father’s homegoing. I built my own table.

When people ask me, “What do you do?” I gently reply, “I fix schools.” That usually gets their attention—and more importantly, it opens the door to curiosity and gets them to lean in. After all, how can a woman—and a Black woman—make such a bold claim?

When I built my company, I made it clear to myself and my team that we were not in the business of closing the education gap. Our mission was far greater—to end it, and in doing so, transform schooling and community.
To fix schools, we went after the hard stuff: relationships. Think about your own learning experiences. Classrooms operate like a game of tennis—the teacher stands on one side of the desk, tossing out questions like tennis balls. Some students are quick to return the serve, but far too many, especially our girls and boys and young men of color, never even get into the game. And what happens when either the student or the teacher is having a rough day? Those exchanges can become harsh and disengaged.

That’s the instructional model we know and accept as normal in education. My company built a new instructional model—one that reimagines the classroom as a space where teachers facilitate learning and students lead with voice and confidence. For nearly two decades my work has successfully taken schools from failure to success, ending the achievement gap for students, and powered up academic achievement. And yes, we have also cracked the code for teaching and learning mathematics and STEM.

Now back to the present—here’s the shameful truth: those discoveries, those proven solutions, often don’t matter in New York City or America. Why? Because if you’re a Black woman entrepreneur, for every dollar a man makes, you earn less than half a penny. White women are reported to earn only two pennies on that same dollar. That means business owners—women are left to struggle, and the innovations they create and discover never reach the world. We wish women “happy international women’s day” and remain complacent about dismantling the systems that the mindset and systems that maintain the gender pay gap and the devaluing of women.

New York City has had 110 mayors in its 401-year history—108 of them White men, and not a single woman. My greatest challenge has been standing at the intersection of politics, money, race, gender, colorism, and entrenched expectations. For instance, during the primary, I was denied the debate stage because candidates were required to spend upwards of 2.5 million dollars—a policy that effectively locks women, particularly women of color, out of office. In a rigged system, running is fighting, and well-behaved women never accomplish greatness.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Pour a cup of compassion and sip it slow. That’s a skill I’m still learning every day as I practice yoga and put the ego down. We all make mistakes—and when we do, we’re often our own harshest critics. Maybe it’s printing a document with a typo and sending it out in a mass email blast, getting someone’s title wrong, or forgetting to pick up flowers for that special someone’s birthday. Whatever it is, we can be so quick to judge ourselves and talk mean to ourselves—stop it. The truth is, mistakes are teachers. If you keep making the same one, learn from it and ask for help—but also forgive yourself. Stop giving power to that inner voice that loves to talk fear and failure. Here’s something to try: pick a word right now—any word. Close your eyes and scream it silently, using only your inner voice. Now, whisper that same word inside your mind. Notice something? You can’t scream at yourself—the tone is always the same. That’s the quiet design of God’s wisdom, your inner voice is to speak to yourself with kindness.

Time management is not the same as using time for goal setting. Keep a well organized calendar but it is more important to use your time to think through your goals and strategy for the project or task you are working on. Take a moment and develop a planning tool with key questions that you will ask and must answer to move your agenda forward. For example—if you need to call a client, that the call will go on the calendar. However you should give time to thinking strategically about the call. What do you want to accomplish? What might be the points of resistance? What does the client want? What do you want to communicate as next steps? It moves you from worrying about the day-to-day and will help you articulate a roadmap for the month or a cycle.

Starve the gaslighters and feed joy. The world will always have a never-ending supply of gaslighters and dream killers. You must protect your dream and realize that you will gain new skills and insights as you take on a new job, go back to school, or embark on a new relationship. It is okay to not dress yourself in the fear that others will project onto you as you reach for your dreams. In my fight to become the 1st Woman Mayor of NYC, if I listen to fear I have never stepped onto the field. In fact, the naysayers will be quick to offer you advice and tell you “why not start at or reach for something smaller” so that you don’t get hurt or disappointed—be on the lookout, that is how they will couch it. Don’t believe them, as I keep learning new skills and going into new territory, joy keeps showing up in the struggle.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

In my fight to become the 1st Woman Mayor of NYC, one of the greatest challenges has been disillusionment. Far too many who because of pain, trauma, and feeling like it is politics as usual have opted out. In America money buys fairness and this is not the true values of what is means to be an American. The media and social media apps keeps us in the dark and in closed rooms. I am a champion who fought breast cancer and have been pushing against the establishment all my life. I am overcoming that challenge by voicing to the people that “no amount of darkness can extinguish a light.” I focus on sharing possibilities and asking the people to consider the possibilities of what it means to build Business and Financial Wellness hubs, having clean streets, and restoring community with art and music. Consider the possibility of teaching children how to swim and giving them the confidence to navigate life. The only way to fight passive violence is with hope, love, and opportunity. I am fighting the political machine by reminding the people that there is lady, who sits in the harbor of NYC and she shines a light for us all.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Anthony Johnothan Priolea Gray (Color Photos)
Latresa Baker, Phenomenal Woman Studio

Mark Ostow Photography (Black and White Images)

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