2023-02-20 08:00:00
North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown speaks to the Review-Journal at City Hall, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, in North Las Vegas. (Erik Verduzco/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown speaks to the Review-Journal at City Hall, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, in North Las Vegas. (Erik Verduzco/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown, center, is inaugurated by Judge Courtney Ketter becoming the first African-American female mayor in Nevada history at North Las Vegas City Hall on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022, in North Las Vegas. She places her hand on the Bible held by her father Theron Goynes. (LE Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images
Pamela Goynes-Brown remembers playing outside the old North Las Vegas City Hall when her father, who was on the City Council, would drive his children to work.
Little did she then imagine that one day she would make history as Nevada’s first African-American female mayor.
Theron Goynes was the first African-American male member of the City Council and also acting mayor, a legacy later picked up by his daughter.
“Goynes-Brown, newly elected mayor of North Las Vegas, told the Review-Journal this week: “When we were little, we were always in City Hall. It was the old building across the street, because we might play on the grass while they were in meetings.”
“But sometimes he would make us come in and listen to him,” he added. “And I think we didn’t realize then that we were actually learning.”
She says she owes her life’s trajectory to her parents, whom she considers her role models, and who until recently attended every Town Hall meeting. They recently tuned in to the live broadcasts.
Decades following Theron Goynes was left on the doorstep of mayor, the 93-year-old sat next to the new mayor in her emotional inauguration speech.
While suffering from dementia, Goynes experiences moments of lucidity in which he expresses his pride in being the father of the mayor of the town the family moved to in 1964.
Naomi Goynes, the mayor’s mother, recently stopped being excited regarding her daughter’s historic achievement, Goynes-Brown said.
“No, I take it back,” Goynes Brown joked Wednesday. “Yesterday she cried regarding it.”
It was her mother who, with a calm but stern nature, pushed Goynes-Brown to go to college, even when she thought she was done with education following graduating high school.
“You don’t have to go to college,” he remembers hearing. “But you can’t stay here.”
Even then, Goynes-Brown may have been a professional concert pianist, a subject she studied at Prairie View A&M University before switching her major to music education, following in her parents’ footsteps by becoming a Clark County educator.
His 1984 graduation was on a Sunday, “and by Monday I already had a job at the Clark County School District,” says Goynes-Brown.
After more than 30 years as a teacher and school administrator, her brother convinced her to run for office. The family, very close, worked together to achieve it.
A long-awaited historic moment
Goynes-Brown reflected on her father’s failed mayoral bid and the city’s changing demographics.
“We are in a different time,” he said. “And that’s why we embrace each other’s differences and similarities… accepting that anyone can serve, anyone can apply regardless of who they are, what they are.”
Asked what Black History Month means to her, Goynes-Brown simply stated: “everything in the world.”
“It’s a time to reflect on the African Americans who have come before me,” he said. “I talk regarding generations and generations, their achievements and how they helped build the path to get to where I am today. Because without all the struggles they’ve been through… even when I didn’t understand them, all of that paved the way for me to be where I am now.”
He said he may never know why Nevada, which became a state in 1864, took so long to elect an African-American mayor.
“But it happened, and I want to celebrate that success and keep moving forward so that those who come following me say that, ‘You know, you might be this too: You work hard, you have a strong belief and you stay true to your faith and you try to stay true. yourself,’” she said.
UNLV history professor Michael Green said he had asked himself the same questions.
A couple of decades ago, he said, he set out to find out how many African-American candidates had run for mayor in Nevada.
He only found one: Theron Goynes.
“North Las Vegas might have been called the city most likely (to make history),” he said. “Partly because it has had a significant African-American population.”
The city would have elected an African-American mayor regardless of who won in November. State Sen. Pat Spearman, D-North Las Vegas, was the other candidate in the general election. Even so, Goynes-Brown got 65.7 percent of the vote.
“It’s sad to say that the story here has generally been, with exceptions, that African-American candidates are much more likely to win in African-American divisions or districts,” Green said.
But to blame racism would be to oversimplify the story, although there has been some of that tied to political alliances that have historically stymied racial progress, Green said.
“I like to think, and I think things are better,” Green said. “But I think we still have a long way to go.”
North Las Vegas Councilman Isaac Barron said the division of the city into districts helped achieve better representation.
“I think overall, she won a very clear majority, and that meant that people across the spectrum in North Las Vegas…was a broad spectrum of people who recognized her leadership.”
‘She might do it’
By all accounts, Goynes-Brown had an almost perfect upbringing.
His parents moved from Utah to pursue education in Clark County.
Goynes-Brown, her sister and her brother were raised in the Baptist church, Kimberly Goynes, her older sister, told the Review-Journal. “We went to school together, played sports together, traveled together, shopped together,” she said.
From a very young age, Goynes-Brown has excelled at every goal he has pursued.
From soccer to music, Goynes Brown was always going to the next level, “he was always going to the top in experience,” says Kimberly Goynes, who is also a retired educator.
So Kimberly Goynes knew her sister might win a mayoral race, thinking, “She might do it; she might do it.”
The sisters attended the same college and shared a room, and while Goynes-Brown was younger. “She introduced me” to her sorority, and she continues to be a decisive, motivating, inspiring and humble role model, Kimberly Goynes said.
Kimberly Goynes recalled the victory on election night, when the three brothers joined hands and spoke their family motto: “We are one.”
Goynes-Brown is also an avid fisherman, who enjoys large family gatherings, cooking comfort food and watching football or basketball, and enjoys quiet time playing the piano at home, or reading when she can keep her eyes open, he said.
Her two adult sons are immensely proud of their mother, Kimberly Goynes said.
efficient leader
North Las Vegas is in good hands, Barron said of his longtime colleague.
“I like to measure twice and cut once before making decisions,” he said. “The mayor is more deliberate than that. She measures things from every possible angle, and once she’s made up her mind, she’s probably the best one.”
He noted that he and Goynes Brown continue to live in the same neighborhoods in which they grew up.
“We understand what it means to be from North Las Vegan, we understand what it means to have (to act on) certain things that are really important to our friends and to our neighbors.”
“We don’t just travel to the place where we work,” he said. “It’s actually part of who we are.”
Barron said Goynes-Brown is a dedicated worker who is always smiling and has a “very positive” attitude despite how tired she may be.
“I know you have a lot of things to do every day,” he said. “These things can wear you out.”
Barron knows that North Las Vegas can “always count on her as the voice of reason.” He was the city’s calming voice to grieving voters during the pandemic, he said.
And when Barron invites her to a Latino-oriented event, she’s always happy to attend, she said.
“I respect her deeply,” he said.
“Someday, when we are both no longer mayor or councilor, I wouldn’t be surprised to have dinner at his house,” he said. “And I know I would be very honored to have her at my house for a bite to eat, or somewhere in the community, of course, somewhere in North Las Vegas.”
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