Longtime Davidson County Clerk Talks Career and Post-Retirement Plans
Brenda Wynn retired in September from her post as the Davidson County Clerk after serving in the role for more than a dozen years. Wynn’s 2012 win made history as she became the first African American woman to be elected to a constitutional office in Davidson County.
Wynn worked for a number of years in the nonprofit sector before she went to work at Meharry Medical College to serve as assistant to the president at Meharry under Dr. David Satcher, who later moved on to lead the Centers for Disease Control. Rather than take a role and move with Satcher to Atlanta, Wynn said she chose to remain at Meharry and serve under Dr. John Maupin, Jr.
In 1999, Mayor Bill Purcell tapped Wynn as the first director of the Office of Neighborhoods, where she remained until 2003 when Rep. Jim Cooper hired her as his community outreach coordinator. She worked for Cooper until her election as Davidson County Clerk in 2012.
You were the first African American woman elected to the position in 2012.
The thing that resonated the most with me about that election was that I got, I think, 148,000 votes in the county. The person who got more votes than me in the county was Jim Cooper. Barack Obama was at the top of the ticket, but I think I got more votes than Barack Obama (she laughs).
So, to be able to ride the coattails of Jim Cooper in that election just spoke to me about the fact that people cared a whole awful lot about what they were electing me to do.
What made you want to get the position as the Davidson County Clerk?
Running for elected office and politics was never something that I aspired to do. There’s a scripture in the Message Bible, in Psalms, that says, “Is this any way to run a country? Is there an honest politician in the house?” So let me say that as a person of faith, why would I want to be a part of a profession that even the Bible calls out as being dishonest? And so I never aspired to run for elected office. (Editor’s Note: The Message Bible is a paraphrase of the Bible in modern English.)
But at the time that it presented itself, as a person of color, I saw an opportunity for us to make inroads in a space where we hadn’t in the past been able to make those inroads. And so that’s why I did it.
Again, I don’t like politics, still don’t like it to this day, mainly because of how we’re looked at as politicians. But I don’t count myself as a politician. I consider myself a public servant. I live to serve, and that’s what we’re called to do as people of faith.
How do you explain to a stranger in an elevator what the Davidson County Clerk actually does?
The County Clerk is the constitutional office that touches almost anybody in the county.
If you want to drive a motor vehicle in the county, you’re touched by the County Clerk’s Office because we have responsibility for registering and collecting county and state taxes related to motor vehicle services.
If you want to get married, anybody who wants to get married in the county has to come by the County Clerk’s Office because we issue marriage licenses.
If you want to run a business in the county, you’re affected by the County Clerk’s Office because we issue business licenses.
Anybody who wants to serve as a notary public has to come through that office to get their notary commission.
One other thing that we do that most people don’t know about is that we issue licenses for motor homes. If you want to have a motor home, you have to come through that office to get your motor home registered in the County Clerk’s Office.
We also issue pawn broker licenses. And so because of what we do in the County Clerk’s Office, we touch almost every adult individual in the county.
When you look at Nashville’s neighborhoods and Nashvillians’ needs, what are some of the most significant changes that you have observed since the early 2000s?
The gentrification. The growth in neighborhoods.
What Bill Purcell allowed me to do as head of the Office of Neighborhoods was to invest in neighborhoods and give people who lived in neighborhoods opportunities to do things that would build their communities. And they built some great communities that have grown by leaps and bounds.
I tell people about a friend of mine named Miss Jackie; I won’t give her last name. But Miss Jackie bought a house [in the 12th South Neighborhood] in 1963. Miss Jackie is one of the few long-time neighbors in that community who is still there. She was part of neighborhood organizations, particularly the Sunnyside neighborhood group, that helped that neighborhood grow and thrive. When you look at what’s going on [in and around] 12th South now, we know that we have created communities where people want to be and want to live. They want to go there and spend time there.
There are pros and cons to that. Again, Miss Jackie is a senior citizen. She’s 89 years old now, and because of the things that happen in our community with tax freezes and everything else, she can stay in the community, and her taxes aren’t such that she can’t afford them. But when something happens to her, I’m not sure that her family will be able to keep that house because the tax rate over in that community has just blown up.
So we created great communities, great neighborhoods, but [now have] tax bases where you’re not sure that you can leave wealth in the hands of your family. And that’s our intent. I mean, I just believe our intent as a city ought to be to grow wealth in every segment of our community.
You have served on some of the most prominent nonprofit boards in our city, including, among many others, the Leadership Nashville Alumni Association, the League of Women Voters of Nashville, Nashville’s Agenda, United Way of Metropolitan Nashville and the Nashville Women’s Political Caucus. We hear a lot of criticism about silos and lack of coordination among nonprofits and governments. What are your thoughts about that?
I think that we’ve talked about lack of cooperation for years, and we’ve tried to create opportunities for not-for-profits to coordinate their efforts. I’m not sure that we’ve gotten it. I’d love to see us get there.
The one organization that you didn’t mention was the YWCA of Nashville. I’m proud of the affiliation that I had with the YW because of what the YW does for women in this community. There are others that work to prevent domestic violence. I would just love to see those partners get the kind of support from the not-for-profit community as well as the city of Nashville because when you think about what the YW and their other domestic violence organizations provide in terms of shelter and housing for women when they’re trying to leave a violent situation, it is a service that’s provided to the community that the city can’t do.
I’d love to see us be able to partner together to make sure that any woman who is dealing with violence in her home has access to the services that she needs to make her life better.
I would love to see the Office of Family Safety, the Mary Parish Center, and the YWCA get more support from the city to run the collaborative effort we need to ensure that women and children have safe environments to grow and thrive in.
Looking back, what are you most proud of?
My family. I always come back to home. I grew up in public housing. Most people don’t know this about me. From the time I was five years old until I was 18 years old, I lived in public housing.
I had my first child at 18, and I lived in public housing at the time. I have three boys, and my first and second kids spent time in public housing. My youngest kid got daycare in that neighborhood, in that public housing, because I had friends there who took care of my kids while I worked.
They’re great young men, great fathers, great pillars in the community. And so I am most proud of the family circle that I have. I have some wonderful sisters. My mom had five kids. My dad had a couple of other kids. We have this family bond, and we just love each other.
My husband has a strong family bond as well. I love my in-laws. My husband has dementia now. We’re dealing with that. But the thing that I have learned is that we have all come together around him. I’ve got a good family support system. I’ve got great friends who are offering their help and support. And so it’s that family thing that I am most proud of.
You grew up in public housing. What is your message to people — and especially young kids — who may feel stuck in poverty?
Believe in yourself.
Some of my family members said they knew we were poor. I never knew I was poor. My mom encouraged us. She supported us. She motivated us. She told me, “Baby, there’s nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it. You can do anything.”
And so I tell young people, don’t believe the naysayers. You can do and you can be anything you want to be. Set your mind to it, set about it, and just go get it done.
Now that you are newly retired, what are your plans?
I’m trying to catch my breath. As I said, my husband has dementia. And so, as much as I can, we’re going to try to do some traveling. Toward the end of my tenure, I was able to do a couple of international trips. Cruising is my favorite mode of vacation because everything is there. I don’t have to cook. I don’t have to clean. There’s entertainment. There are beaches. There are hot tubs.
I’m not going to commit to doing a whole bunch of anything. Just want to enjoy the rest of this life God’s given me. I went to work at 14, and as of August of this year, I had worked 55 years, so I don’t plan to work too hard now.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I’d like to say thank you to the citizens of Nashville. I was successful in the Office of Neighborhoods and Jim Cooper’s Office and as County Clerk because people believed that we could get some things done, and because people believed it, I did too.
So I say thank you to anybody who ever believed enough in me to support my efforts. Thank you. I thank God for the opportunity God has given me, and I just give all praise to a mighty God that I serve.