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Charlotte mayor opens up about her path of resiliency and growth

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — More than anything, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles embodies resilience. And the story of her resilience started long before she became the city’s first Black female mayor. Lyles, born Viola Taylor, grew up in segregated South Carolina, where she endured the pain and slights of being one of the few African Americans at her high school.

A similar scenario unfolded during her undergraduate years at Queens University, where the first Black student enrolled a year before the future mayor arrived in 1969. After graduating in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, she earned a master’s in public administration and then came to work in Charlotte city government. Over 28 years, Lyles was a budget analyst, budget director and, finally, assistant city manager.

For much of that time, she was a single mom raising two children. She lost her first husband, attorney Wayne Alexander, to mental illness and suicide in 1989.

“That was one of the most traumatizing things in my life,” she told the Charlotte Business Journal. “It took a long time for me to get over that.”

She married John Lyles in 1996.

Her first decade after retiring from city government in 2004 — prompted by a breast cancer diagnosis — included roles at The Lee Institute and elsewhere as a facilitator and executive coach.

Then, as Lyles began pondering a run for City Council, her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. John Lyles urged his wife to move forward with her first campaign. He died on Sept. 10, 2013, the same day she finished second in the at-large Democratic primary. Less than two months later, on Nov. 5, she garnered 15% of the general election vote to become one of four at-large council members, trailing the top vote-getter by three-tenths of a percentage point.

During her second term on council, Lyles decided to run for mayor. By doing so, she was challenging an incumbent in her own party: Jennifer Roberts. She won the primary and went on to defeat a fellow council member, Republican Kenny Smith, in the general election. In 2019, Lyles was reelected.

Charlotte has added 27,000 jobs since Lyles became mayor. Her tenure includes clinching major corporate relocations by Honeywell International Inc. and Centene Corp., with the latter deal expected to bring investment of $1 billion.

Lyles, 68, is the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in CBJ’s Women in Business Awards program for 2021. She recently spoke with CBJ about her personal and professional ups and downs — and the city’s most pressing challenges. Read that interview here.

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