Jamilla Pinder In Her Own Right

In January, the Greensboro City Council appointed Jamilla Pinder to the at-large seat vacated when Yvonne Johnson died in office. Pinder, who has held the position since January, talked to The Thread about her re-election campaign, her background in health care, and what she’s learned since joining council.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me a little bit about your background and connection to Greensboro.

I grew up here in Greensboro. My dad was in the Army, and then he was a pastor, and I moved here when I was 12. When I think about why I do what I do, it’s all rooted in service. Growing up in a military family, you were always thinking about service to this country.

For school, I went to Dudley and was in the Science and Math Academy. I did student government, and then I went to [North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University]. I was pregnant my senior year of high school, so I had my son the first semester of college. When I had my son, I stopped going to school and started working full-time. [Pinder returned to A&T later in life, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in agribusiness and food industry management in 2019]. 

Tell me about that. Your work in health care seems to have really formed your political outlook.

So I’ve been at Cone Health for 28 years. I used to be the assistant director for healthy communities. Most of that work was building partnerships internally and externally. It was about addressing the social drivers of health. 

Through the experience of being a single mother and navigating those spaces for myself, I have seen that health care is so important. That’s when I fell in love with community and community medicine and went to work with Health Serve, which was acquired by Cone Health. Since then, I’ve worked to open up our safety net practices, which serve people who are uninsured or underinsured. It’s so they can go see a specialty care physician or primary care doctor, regardless of their ability to pay. During COVID, I led our equity work and helped our unloved communities have access to testing, to vaccines, and also helped address housing for those communities.

Talk a little more about your personal experiences and how they shaped your outlook on health care.

Those experiences are why I am just so passionate about the work that I do. I know what it’s like not to have. I have been that person who has not qualified for SNAP benefits because I made just a little too much. When I say I’ve lived it, I’ve learned it, I’ve applied it. It helped me to understand how to create better conditions to access health. Because if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything else. 

You’ve talked about how health care isn’t necessarily just about the body. It’s more holistic than that. Can you explain?

I fell in love with community and all the dynamics of a person’s health and well-being. I’m always thinking about what gets people to a certain point. I started going deeper. What if we address the food, the housing, the transit?

When you’re talking about health care, it’s in every facet of life. It’s not just access, it’s financial health, mental health, emotional health. And all of those things tie into business, housing.

For example, a few weeks ago, I started working with the transit department because there was an issue of loitering off of Summit Avenue. So I said, ‘Hey, let’s look into this.’ And we ended up relocating a bus stop and started to see it become cleaner. I also attended a Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro meeting, where I was listening to constituents and also providing awareness, giving them the number to show who they can call if they have concerns.

That’s why my slogan is “your city, your voice, your future.” It’s not just call me all the time, it’s providing the people the information, the awareness.

Besides health care, what are other issues you’re focused on?

I am looking at the housing component. I’m working with the legal team right now and providing suggestions to see if we can address housing ordinances. Trying to see if we can hold landlords accountable for subpar housing conditions. We can pull the data. Nobody deserves to live in deplorable living conditions. That is not okay. Not in Greensboro, not in 2025, is this acceptable. So we’re going to find a way to hold you accountable in a respectful way.

I’m also looking at old policies that may have served a purpose in the past, but maybe not now. For example, with abandoned buildings that may have lead or asbestos, what are grants we can get for preservation? I get that we need new housing stock, but also, what does preservation of old buildings for housing look like?

Why do you think you should retain your seat on council?

I’ve been garnering the respect of my colleagues and the respect of the community as a whole. I’m passionate, and I believe in you, and I hope you believe in me. I want to be a part of solidifying our identity as a city. Raleigh is known as this, Charlotte is known as this. I want to be a part of shaping Greensboro. I want people to come here and feel a sense of family, connectedness, and safety. 

We are nestled in the central part of North Carolina, and I want people to say they feel seen when they come here. To say they feel like they belong. I see that for the city here.