Morning, gang.
This week, Greensboro lost a giant in Edward Samuel “Jim” Melvin.
Banker. Mayor. Mover. Shaker. Prominent philanthropist and head of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation. Namesake of the Melvin Municipal Office Building, Greensboro’s city hall. Until just before his death last Sunday at 91, Melvin was—as many called him over the years—“Mr. Greensboro.”
“He really never stopped, right up until last week,” Mayor Nancy Vaughan told me Tuesday.
Even when it meant using oxygen and being driven around town by a nurse, Melvin stayed in the mix in his hometown. Vaughan remembered seeing him at the recent JetZero announcement, sitting in the crowd like anyone else. He was beaming as the leaders who followed him celebrated new jobs and the growing industry at Piedmont Triad International, the small regional airport Melvin championed. He always believed it could help shape the city’s future.
“People used to laugh at that, when they would throw around the word ‘aerotropolis,’” Vaughan said. “But look at it now.”
Until Vaughan herself, Melvin was the longest-serving mayor of Greensboro, in office for a decade from 1971 to 1981. It was a period of growth and change in Greensboro, but also of division and conflict.
Melvin was elected in the wake of the Greensboro Uprising at N.C. A&T State University, when National Guardsmen used armored personnel carriers and a tank against protestors. He initially opposed changes to the city council designed to promote greater racial representation—a position he later admitted was wrong. He led the city during the Greensboro Massacre, a dark day that still divides the city. He sometimes clashed with local Civil Rights leaders, but later befriended and worked to honor them until his death.
We’ll have a longer, deeper remembrance of Melvin next week. But today I wanted to take a minute to tell you about the last time I spoke with him.
When The Assembly’s Greensboro bureau got underway last year, Melvin called to compliment several of our initial stories as some of the best local journalism he’d read in a long while. It was awfully kind of him to take the time to reach out. But when he called again in February of this year, I expected to get an earful.
We’d just published a lengthy remembrance of Rev. Nelson Johnson after his death. It included an old quote from Melvin calling Johnson “the most dangerous man in Greensboro.” I braced myself, betting Melvin would tell me, in that sweet but firm southern accent, that was unnecessary. I’d have lost that bet.
“Jim Melvin here,” he said when I picked up. “I just wanted to say this story about Nelson Johnson is the best thing I’ve read about him this week. He was complicated. You know, I am too. I bet you are. We both made some mistakes. We both loved Greensboro. I just wanted to say you really captured that.”
I’d tell you I was shocked, but that’s seriously underselling it. As my friend Allen Johnson recently wrote for the News & Record, a close brush with death and serious illness seemed to soften the supremely self-assured Melvin in his last years. But, as Johnson observed, it was actually an evolution happening for a long while.
In his 91 years, Jim Melvin sure rang the bells—and he left his beloved city better than he found it.
— Joe Killian
Thanks for reading The Thread, a 3x week newsletter written by Greensboro editor Joe Killian and reporters Sayaka Matsuoka and Gale Melcher. Reach us with tips or ideas at greensboro@theassemblync.com.
Support Without Strings
Held is a Greensboro-based nonprofit that gives money directly to people struggling to work their way out of homelessness.
The group gives an unconditional $3,000 upfront, followed by $750 per month for a year for Greensboro participants. The key, Executive Director John Thornton said, is finding people who have the best chance of securing housing. They do this by partnering with local organizations already connected to those in need. Often, candidates have jobs and are staying in a hotel, with a family member or a friend, or sleeping in a vehicle.
Thornton knows $3,000 isn’t enough for a person living on the street to get their own place. But for those on the cusp, that little boost makes all the difference.
“There are a lot of people that need more than the amount that we’re giving,” Thornton said. “But there are a lot of people for whom this does work.”
Read the full story here.
-Sayaka Matsuoka
What We’re Reading
The Kinder, Gentler Jim Melvin: The News & Record’s Allen Johnson remembers former Greensboro Mayor Jim Melvin and charts the way the hard-charging and supremely confident Melvin softened over the years.
‘A Greensboro and Triad Giant’: The Triad Business Journal remembers Melvin’s life, work, and outsized impact on Greensboro and the Piedmont Triad, from business recruitment and economic development to helping revitalize downtown.
Citizen Jim’s Latest Hurrah: This O.Henry Magazine piece from 2022 catches up with Melvin in his final years, still working as hard as ever and concentrating on some new priorities.
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