Charlotte Happenings

FEB 2017

Charlotte Happenings is your monthly guide to events and things to do in and around Charlotte, NC.

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SPOTLIGHT C O N T E M P O R A R Y G A M E C H A N G E R S VI LYLES GOVERNMENT Currently in her second term as an at-large representative on Charlotte City Council, Lyles serves as mayor pro tem for the City of Charlotte. She is also the owner of Vi Lyles Consulting, a firm that champions government and nonprofit organizations through strategic planning and engagement. In 2009, the Vi Lyles Young Public Administrator Award was created in her honor. JAMES E. FORD EDUCATION Having taught world history at Garinger High School in Charlotte starting in 2010 (and after previously teaching in Illinois), Ford was named North Carolina Teacher of the Year for 2014-2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and respective sponsors. A Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teacher had not received the honor in more than 40 years. Ford, who was also named Charlottean of the Year by Charlotte magazine in 2014, is now the program director for the Public School Forum of North Carolina. THERESA WILSON BUSINESS Executive Vice President and Group Chief Information Office of Consumer Lending Technology at Wells Fargo, Wilson has dedicated her accomplished career—which began in Charlotte in the 1970s at First Union and has included several mergers—to building a better state of banking in Charlotte. In 2016, she was awarded a Charlotte Business Journal CIO of the Year Award. rights movement, signaling the beginning of his career as a political trailblazer and leader within municipal and state government. In 1965, he took the oath of office as the first African American to serve as a member of the Charlotte City Council since the 1890s. During his tenure as a councilman (1965-1974), Fred sought to improve the social, political and economic realities of the city's black citizenry, including the deceased. In January 1969, he successfully rallied City Council to remove the fence that separated Third Ward's all-white Elmwood Cemetery from its all-black counterpart, Pinewood Cemetery. By dismantling the fence—a symbolic representation of the vestiges of the cradle-to-grave cycle of Jim Crow segregation—Fred used his political platform to advance his civil rights agenda. Five years later, in 1974, Fred Alexander expanded his reach when he was elected to the North Carolina Senate, where he served for several years. As longtime activists and civic leaders, both Fred and Kelly Alexander sacrificed their own lives to dignify the lives of others—especially North Carolina's most vulnerable citizens. Together, the Alexander brothers paved the way for a new generation of African- American leaders who went on to transform the political landscape in the 1970s and 1980s, including Harvey Gantt. KELLY ALEXANDER PHOTO COURTESY OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNC CHARLOTTE FEBRUARY 2017 51

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